East The Magazine of East Carolina University
winter 2008
An Eye for Art
How East Carolina’s long love
for fine arts shapes creative minds
Detail from Great Ocean Road II, Australia
41" x 28" batik on silk by Mary Edna Fraser ’74
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
winter 2008
viewfinder
26
12
18
FE A T U RE S
12 A N EYE FO R AR T
By Steve Row The galleries in the Jenkins Fine Arts Center are
open daily displaying works with unusual merit, but you need
to look closer to see the broader picture of the long history and
pronounced appeal of the fine arts at East Carolina.
18 LO N G -T ER M IN T ERES T
By Steve Tuttle Kelly S. King has done pretty well for someone who
still has the same job he landed right out of college. He’s still
working for BB&T, which has grown to become the 11th-largest
bank in the nation and he has risen to become the No. 2 guy in a
company with 30,000 employees.
22 THE DOCTOR OF DOGFISH
By Leanne E. Smith Biology professor Roger Rulifson thinks Green
Mill Run, the creek at the bottom of College Hill, is an excellent
learning environment. He also gives students first hand experience
in monitoring the dogfish, a threatened species of shark.
26 DE P TH CHAR T
By Bethany Bradsher The ECU sports budget has grown to $23.4
million, most of which pays the salaries of more than 100 staffers
who labor unseen to keep fans happy and the athletes healthy.
DE P A RT M ENT S
3
FRO M OUR REA DERS
4
THE E C U RE POR T
10 WIN T ER AR TS CALEN DAR
34
P IRA T E NA T ION
37
CL AS S NO T ES
48
UPON THE PAST
22
Yes, mom,
he’s getting
enough to eat
The dining halls
on campus serve
roughly 14,000
all-you-can-eat
meals daily. A
popular breakfast
option is packing
a sandwich and
some fruit for a
brown-bag lunch.
2
Pirates boosting bus iness
Thank you for the recent article highlighting
the strong positive influence East Carolina
has on the region. Economic development
is a fast-paced, competitive business, and
my training and connections from ECU
have been an asset. I would like to point
out to your readers that there are a number
of alumni statewide who hold positions of
leadership in business recruitment, including
at least 18 members of the N.C. Economic
Developers Association. I handle recruitment
and retention in Statesville and another
Pirate, Melanie O’Connell-Underwood ’84,
does the same in Mooresville.
­—
C. Michael Smith ’86 ’90, Statesville
Here’s the list Michael provided of other Pirates
who work in economic development in the
state: Kelly Andrews, Pitt County Economic
Development Commission; Doug Byrd, N.C.
Department of Commerce; George Collier,
Department of Commerce; John Gurganus, Bill
Stephenson and Johnny Rogers, all Department
of Commerce (retired); Charles Hayes, Research
Triangle Regional Partnership; Alan Jones, CRB
Engineers; Tiffany McNeill, Department of
Commerce; Jerry O’Keefe, PSNC Energy; Lisa
Perry, economic development consultant; Donna
Phillips, Department of Commerce; Mark
Pope, Lenoir County Economic Development
Commission; Richard Roberson, Department
of Commerce; James L.F. Smith, Four County
Electric Membership Corp.; Tom Thompson,
Beaufort County Economic Development
Commission; Conni Tucker, Wake County
Economic Development Commission; Jim
Ward, Martin County Economic Development
Commission; and Wanda Yuhas, Pitt County
Economic Development Commission.
What defines a university?
If the statement attributed to Chancellor
Steve Ballard [that] economic development
“must define the soul of a university. It
must define our success” truly represents
his philosophy of a university’s soul, then I
think he is better suited for leadership of a
technical school rather than a university. I
always thought the soul of a true university
resided in the quest for knowledge and
scholarship. Professors of philosophy
and the fine arts must be feeling a little
uncomfortable if they read this quote.
­—
Gil Burroughs, Edenton
We did beat State in ‘72
I look forward to getting East magazine, as
it keeps me up to date on ECU. However,
I must correct Bethany Bradsher’s article
Family Feud (on the football rivalry with N.C.
State). I played football for ECU for the ’70
and ’71 seasons. In the second game of the
State series, Oct. 23, 1971, we beat N.C.
State 31–15. Not “six years after that 23–6
defeat,” of 1970, as stated in the article.
It was a great win, as it was the first time
ECU had beaten an ACC school in football.
The players of ’70 and ’71 were there at
the beginning of this great rivalry, and truly
understand the intensity of it.
—Paul E. Haug ’70, Cedar Hill, Mo.
Paul retired in 2003 after coaching football and
basketball at Northwest High School for 29 years.
Cedar Hill is a suburb of St. Louis. The error he
cites was caused during the editing process, not by
the writer.
Growing, growing…grown? In all likelihood, the most surprising thing you will read in this issue of the
magazine is the story on page 6 that says East Carolina’s fall semester enrollment
is just a few students shy of 26,000. I’m sure that’s a shocking number to many
alumni who remember a campus half that size. How did ECU get so big so fast?
Some reasons are as obvious as the six new or renovated academic buildings paid
for with $190 million from the state’s higher education bond issue. Over the
past three or four years, several housing, dining and administrative buildings also
went up, paid for with student fees, private gifts and other state funds. On its
three campuses, East Carolina grew to 5.9 million square feet of space in 227
buildings. If you haven’t been on campus in a few years, you should come see how
it’s changed.
ECU’s widely acclaimed distance education program also has fueled the
enrollment growth. The university has more than 4,000 students completing
degrees through a mix of online and traditional classes. Good examples are the
hundreds of future classroom teachers who spend two years studying at their
local community college and then complete an ECU degree with two years of
online and occasional seat classes, all while keeping their day jobs. While its
online students don’t clog the transit buses, the university still must maintain staff
and faculty to serve them like everyone else.
East Carolina’s phenomenal growth reflects policy decisions by the UNC Board
of Governors. Hearing predictions that North Carolina’s population would
explode by nearly a million residents within a decade, the board in 2000 adopted
a plan directing most of the 16 campuses to grow as fast, but as cheaply, as
possible. Updated in 2004, the plan anticipated that ECU would grow from
18,750 students then to 24,600 in 2007, a mark we hit a year early.
Will ECU get even bigger? Will we, as I overheard someone predict the other
day, have more students than UNC Chapel Hill in a few years? All the UNC
campuses have seen steady growth in enrollments but ECU has been the fastest
growing for six years running. So the enrollment difference between ECU and
Carolina has narrowed significantly, from around 6,000 in 2000 to about 2,200
today. (N.C. State, the biggest, has more than 31,000 students.)
But officials say ECU now has about reached maximum capacity. All the new
academic buildings funded by the state bond issue are full to bursting. No
new dorms or dining halls are on the drawing board. The central campus is
landlocked.
We hear so often about the mandate for our public universities to provide
greater access to higher education, which is a noble but fuzzy concept that’s hard
to grasp. Come stand on the ECU campus, at the 11 o’clock class change, and
you will see it.
from the editor
Volume 6, Number 2
East is published four times a year by
East Carolina University
Division of University Advancement
2200 South Charles Blvd.
Greenville, NC 27858
h
EDITOR
Steve Tuttle
252-328-2068 / tuttles@ecu.edu
ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER
Brent Burch
PHOTOGRAPHER
Forrest Croce
COPY EDITOR
Jimmy Rostar ’94
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Marion Blackburn, Bethany Bradsher,
Steve Row, Leanne Smith, Adeline Trento
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Marc Kawanishi
CLASS NOTES EDITOR
Leanne Elizabeth Smith ’04 ’06
ecuclassnotes@ecu.edu
ADMINISTRATION
Michelle Sloan
h
DIRECTOR OF UNIVERSITY MARKETING
Clint Bailey
East Carolina University is a constituent institution of
The University of North Carolina. It is a public doctoral/
research intensive university offering baccalaureate, master’s,
specialist and doctoral degrees in the liberal arts, sciences
and professional fields, including medicine. Dedicated to the
achievement of excellence, responsible stewardship of the
public trust and academic freedom, ECU values the
contributions of a diverse community, supports shared
governance and guarantees equality of opportunity.
©2008 by East Carolina University
Printed by The Lane Press
U.P. 07-459 58,500 copies of this public document were
printed at a cost of $38,160.85 or $.65 per copy.
East The Magazine of East Carolina University
winter 2008
Read East on your computer
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Send a check to the ECU Foundation,
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from our readers
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University Archives
4
ECU adopts a new vision
East Carolina has adopted a strategic plan
that will guide it into its next century of
service, and the university invites all alumni
and friends to read the booklet. Your copy
of ECU Tomorrow: A Vision for Leadership and
Service was mailed with this issue of East.
In addition to reflecting key values and
projecting a vision that is appropriate to this
moment in East Carolina’s history, ECU
Tomorrow lays out five strategic directions
intended to guide the university as it begins
its next century:
education for a new century—ECU will
prepare our students to compete and succeed
in the global, technology-driven economy.
the leadership university—ECU will
distinguish itself by the ability to train and
prepare leaders for tomorrow for the east, for
North Carolina and for our nation.
economic prosperity—ECU will create
a strong and sustainable future for eastern
North Carolina through education,
innovation, investment and outreach.
health care and medical innovation—
ECU will save lives, cure diseases, and
transform the quality of health care for the
region and the state.
the arts, culture and the quality
of life—ECU will provide world-class
entertainment, culture and performing arts
to enhance the quality of our lives.
According to Chancellor Steve Ballard,
“These five strategic directions represent
great strengths of ECU, opportunity for
growth and, most importantly, they all have
positive impacts for our citizens.”
Executing the plan will depend upon the
support of private donors. With that in
mind, the university is preparing to announce
a major fund-raising campaign in March
2008.
Another Doogie Howser?
If it weren’t for the lab coat and the
stethoscope around his neck, you might
mistake James Smith Jr. ’07 for one of the
thousands of undergraduate students on
campus. He certainly looks like one. But
he’s already graduated from college and is
well into his first year of medical school. In
fact, he is the second-youngest student ever
accepted by the Brody School of Medicine
and missed holding the all-time record by
two months.
“It is a privilege to be enrolled here no
matter what my age,” says Smith, who was
20 years, 10 months and 14 days old when
he matriculated at Brody after completing
a biology degree in three years. According
to university records, the youngest-ever
Brody student—the Doogie Howser of
Greenville—is Joseph E. Beshay ’97 ’01, who
was 20 years, 8 months and 6 days old when
he matriculated. In its 35-year history, only
six Brody students had not yet turned 21
when they entered medical school.
Smith comes from a family of medical
professionals. His grandfather, father
and aunt are pharmacists, and one of his
grandmothers is a nurse. He was inspired
by their service: “They all have a common
goal to work closely with others to improve
their quality of life, and through years of
observation and their nurturing, I have
developed a deep compassion to use my
talents to help others.”
5
Scott Cooper
The ECU Report
He became a certified nursing assistant
in high school in Fayetteville and started
shadowing Dr. Carol Wadon, a neurosurgeon
at Cape Fear Medical Center, during his
senior year. If Wadon had to perform
emergency surgery in the middle of the
night, she called Smith to observe. She
quizzed him on patients’ conditions and
included him in the diagnoses. Smith was
hooked. “Having the opportunity to observe
first-hand the miracle of medicine has
been one of the most positive impacts on
pursuing a career in medicine,” he says.
Going far so fast in higher education isn’t
that hard, Smith says. “Time management
is everything, and putting school first is a
must. If you study a little bit every day, then
you have all the time in the world for a few
extracurricular activities.”
Reached at the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical School in Dallas,
where he is a resident, Beshay said his age
wasn’t a problem during his years at Brody.
“I recall some of my classmates thought it
was amusing that I turned ‘legal’ during my
first year of medical school, but it was never
a hindrance.”
Beshay said his early start in medicine
worked to his advantage in one respect.
“I decided to switch gears by switching
specialties after my internship. I switched
from internal medicine, a three-year
residency, to neurosurgery, a seven-year
residency. I’m no older than my classmates
despite the switch and will finish at a
reasonable age. The education I received at
Brody was superb, and it prepared me well
for residency.”
Beshay and Smith agree that the doctor’s age
shouldn’t be a factor in the quality of care a
patient receives. “Patients want a physician
who is knowledgeable and caring regardless
of their age,” Beshay says.
—Leanne E. Smith
You be the doctor
He’s learned to use a hypodermic needle
to inject himself with saline and watched
high-intensity beams destroy a brain tumor,
but Jim Westmoreland isn’t a medical
student. He’s participating in ECU’s Mini-
Med School in which the Brody School
of Medicine throws open its doors to
the community. About 100 business and
civic leaders, government officials and the
plain curious are exposed to the world of
doctoring, taking them from bedside manner
to bioethics in only six weeks.
Westmoreland said he’s experienced some
things he expected, like lectures on cancer,
stroke and heart disease and discussions on
medical ethics. There were some unexpected
moments, too, such as hearing doctors make
jokes about each other.
“I was impressed with the science, with their
knowledge and with their personal skill,” he
said of the presenters, who included some
of the medical school’s most accomplished
physicians. “The Mini-Med School gives
us a chance, in a really short time, to better
understand the life-saving medical care that
comes from real human beings.”
Although he works for the university as
associate dean for external affairs in the
College of Business, Westmoreland wanted
to learn more about what was taking place
at the medical campus—and was amazed.
“It was unlike anything I had ever seen
before,” he said. “It was encouraging to see
the advancements being made, many of them
unique to our medical school.”
That kind of response wouldn’t surprise
Kathy Kolasa, a professor of nutrition
and education section head for the family
medicine and pediatrics departments, who
served as program co-director, along with
Virginia Hardy, senior associate dean for
academic affairs at the Brody School of
Medicine.
“Sometimes even our own community
doesn’t realize how cutting-edge we are,”
Kolasa said. “The Mini-Med School is an
exciting educational opportunity for ECU
faculty to share information about the major
health concerns in our region and how we
James Smith Jr.
Mini-Med School
6 7
The ECU Report
are contributing to improve health through
research and teaching.”
Participants eyeballed such developments as
surgical robotics and even sat at the controls
of the da Vinci Surgical System teaching
model, which allows surgeons to perform
heart surgery and other procedures using
precision-guided mechanical arms.
“People come from around the world for
our programs,“ Kolasa said. “We recently
had a visitor from Britain who was studying
childhood obesity. We were the first stop.”
Lectures such as “Cancer: Chaos in the Cell”
helped participants better understand modern
medical mysteries and treatments. They also
heard updates on the new East Carolina Heart
Institute, expected to open in 2008, and other
planned expansions at the medical center.
In one workshop, audiences learned the
difference between heartbeats and heart
sounds. “They’re not dumbed-down
lectures,” says Dr. Harry Adams, a professor
emeritus of internal medicine and one
of the original organizers of the Mini-
Med School. “Presenters may use less
medical terminology, and more phrases
understandable to someone without a
medical background, but the information is
up-to-the-minute.”
This year’s curriculum showcased
developments at the medical school and in
the larger field of human illness and health.
During small working sessions, participants
tried to diagnose “standardized patients,”
those who act out diseases and illnesses to
give medical students a dress rehearsal.
Visiting the hospital’s emergency department,
participants worked with a computer-operated
emergency “patient,” a model known
as Stan, who mimics a gunshot wound, heart
attack and other serious conditions. Models
like Stan can help teach high-risk procedures,
such as finding chest vessels for delivering
hydration or IV medication.
“These simulations allow us to teach
and assess medical students in a safe
environment,” says Dr. Walter “Skip” Robey
III, clinical associate professor and director
of the Medical Simulation and Patient
Safety Laboratory.
Despite its complexities, medicine is not
unlike other professions, especially law and
the clergy, where professionals must be
trusted with a person’s deepest secrets.
“The medical school is kind of a mystery
to people, even if they have friends who are
physicians or researchers,” Adams said. “It’s
teaching people to take care of lives, to deal
with people in a nurturing manner. Patients
tell you things they’re not telling anyone else,
and you have to understand and not judge.”
When their training ended, graduates of
the Mini-Med School had gained a taste of
how it might feel to hold someone’s life in
your hands.
“You really have insight into some of the
things doctors go through,” said Stanley
Zicherman, 72, who took part in the 2000
Mini-Med School and now helps teach
medical students as a standardized patient.
—Marion Blackburn
Enrollment nears 26,000
Enrollment hovered at 26,000 for the fall
semester—about 1,500 more students than
a year ago—as East Carolina labored to
provide enough dorm rooms, classrooms,
teachers, books and food for its swelling
student body. Still, only a few problems
impeded the start of another term on the
crowded campus, including a glitch in the
university’s new computer system, called
Banner, which resulted in long lines of
students outside the Financial Aid office.
Campus Dining officials reported serving
288,066 meals in the first three weeks of
this semester—roughly 14,000 a day—
compared to 253,505 meals in the same
three-week period last year, about 12,000
a day. The enrollment surge also is evident
off-campus in overcrowding on some ECU
Transit buses serving several large apartment
complexes. About 70 percent of students live
off campus.
At least two apartment complexes paid for
expanded bus service after some students
couldn’t find seats. Residents of North
Campus Crossing, a large apartment complex
about four miles from Main Campus, now
can catch a bus to campus every 10 minutes.
Each apartment complex that uses the ECU
bus system pays 65 percent of the operating
costs, which officials said averages about
$28,000 a semester.
This is the sixth year in a row that ECU has
been the fastest-growing of the 16 UNC
campuses. As one of the fastest-growing
states in the nation, North Carolina is
struggling with exploding numbers of people
wanting a college education. A long-range
plan by the Board of Governors last revised
in 2004 anticipated that East Carolina’s
enrollment would hit 24,600 by 2007, a
mark it reached a year ahead of schedule.
If current trends continue, East Carolina
could surpass UNC Chapel Hill in a few
years to become the second-largest university
in the state. The difference in enrollment
between the two campuses was roughly
6,000 students in 2000; now the difference
is roughly 2,000. N.C. State University,
the largest campus, has more than 31,000
students. However, officials say ECU has
little room left to grow.
Recruiting and hiring enough faculty to
teach the ever-expanding course catalogue
is a challenge. Officials say the faculty has
grown nearly 50 percent in the past few
years to more than 1,700. However, the
student-faculty ratio is better today than it
was a decade ago. The average SAT score
of incoming instate freshmen—at 1,031 in
2006—also is higher than a decade ago.
There are about 200 international students
from 54 countries on campus this year.
—Adeline Trento, a staff writer for The East
Carolinian, contributed to this report.
Dental school funds approved
After months of uncertainty, funding is
in hand for the planned ECU School of
Dentistry. The North Carolina legislature
approved $25 million for the project before
it adjourned at the end of the summer. That’s
enough money to complete the design phase
and begin constructing the 112,500-square-foot
building, probably on the west side
of the current Health Sciences Building
on university-owned land. BJAC, a Raleigh
architectural firm, has been retained to design
the dental school. Groundbreaking was
expected to occur before the end of the year.
Though the allocation is short of the $87
million required to complete construction
of the facility and practice sites where dental
students and residents will train, Dr.
Gregory Chadwick, interim dean, believes
the state is firmly committed to the plan.
“We’re really excited to have this funding
from the state,” Chadwick said. “That is a
huge step that will mean we can begin to
move forward. It will allow us to complete
The Rebel, ECU’s avant-garde annual literary
magazine, turns 50 next year. A student-run
publication known during the 1960s, ’70s
and ’80s as the voice of countercultures,
Rebel won an All-American prize from the
Associated Collegiate Press in 1962. Once
mostly a collection of essays, the 50th issue
of Rebel will lean heavily toward nonfiction,
digital photography, film art, animation, and
textile design. Above, the ceramics first-place
award winner from the 2006 Rebel.
􀁙􅤀􀁍􄴀􀁗􅜀􀁊􄨀􀁊􄨲
25˝ × 18˝
hand-built, painted vessel
􀁄􄐀􀁆􄘀􀁓􅌀􀁂􄈀􀁎􄸀􀁊􄨀􀁄􄐀􀁔􅐀 􀀑􁄀􀀙􁤀􀀒􁈀
􀀟􁼀􀀦􂘀
􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀
􀀠􂀀􀀠􂀀
􀀠􂀀􀀢􂈀
􀀠􂀀􀀤􂐀
􀀟􁼀􀀧􂜀􀀧􂜀􀀥􂔀 􀀟􁼀􀀧􂜀􀀧􂜀􀀦􂘀 􀀟􁼀􀀧􂜀􀀧􂜀􀀧􂜀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀟􁼀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀠􂀀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀡􂄀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀢􂈀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀣􂌀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀤􂐀 􀀠􂀀􀀞􁸀􀀞􁸀􀀥􂔀
􀁂􄈀􀁖􅘀􀁝􅴀􀁣􆌀􀁡􆄀􀁏􄼀􀁜􅰀􀁒􅈀􀁡􆄀􀀎􀸀􀁝􅴀􀁔􅐀􀀎􀸀􀁁􄄀􀁢􆈀􀁣􆌀􀁒􅈀􀁓􅌀􀁜􅰀􀁢􆈀􀁡􆄀
􀀳􃌀􀀱􃄀􀁃􄌀􀀎􀸀􀀳􃌀􀁜􅰀􀁠􆀀􀁝􅴀􀁚􅨀􀁚􅨀􀁛􅬀􀁓􅌀􀁜􅰀􀁢􆈀􀀎􀸀􀀵􃔀􀁠􆀀􀁝􅴀􀁥􆔀􀁢􆈀􀁖􅘀
8
the planning process and get into the initial
construction phase.”
The School of Dentistry is expected to open
by 2011, with 50 students enrolled in the
first class. Part of their education will take
place at one of 10 university-owned dental
practices, or service-learning centers. The
school also will have two residency programs
in general and pediatric dentistry. Residents
will learn and practice in the centers, which
will be placed in rural, underserved areas
of the state. Of the first three centers to be
built, two likely will be in eastern North
Carolina, with a third in the mountains.
The ECU dental school is part of the
ambitious “Plan for Dentistry” approved by
the Board of Governors in November 2006,
a joint project with the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. The new budget
allocates $25 million for Chapel Hill’s
planned dental school expansion, which will
focus on research and education, especially in
the dental specialties.
The next steps include filling several key
administrative roles. Chadwick will continue
as interim dean while the search begins for
an associate dean for academic affairs and
an associate dean for finance and operations.
Those jobs are expected to be filled within
a year, along with a director of the service-learning
centers. After these posts are filled
the school will begin to select department
heads and faculty.
In addition, planning will soon begin for the
school’s residency programs. “It’s a lengthy
process,“ Chadwick says. “There are a lot of
things to do.”
Meanwhile, the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable
Trust awarded a $296,000 grant to the
Brody School of Medicine to establish a
dental clinic for overweight children without
access to dental care. The program will
be the first of its kind in the country and
will serve as a model for the integration of
dental care in the treatment of children with
complex diseases, said Dr. Sara G. Grossi, a
periodontist, research professor and director
of the grant.
Patients will come from East Carolina
University’s Pediatric Healthy Weight
Research and Treatment Center, created
in 2003 by the Department of Pediatrics
in response to the epidemic of childhood
obesity in eastern North Carolina. When
30 children participating in the research
clinic received dental exams, 50 percent had
untreated dental cavities, 95 percent had
gingivitis, 60 percent had bleeding gums, 19
percent had tartar buildup and 10 percent
had juvenile periodontitis, an aggressive form
of gum disease.
—Marion Blackburn
Grant endows faculty chair
A $500,000 grant from the Independent
Insurance Agents of North Carolina
(IIANC) will allow the College of Business
to establish a faculty chair for risk and
insurance. Officials announced the gift at
a luncheon held on campus where IIANC
past presidents, board members, and staff
members presented the first $200,000 of
the donation. The chair will be named the
Independent Insurance Agents of North
Carolina Distinguished Professor.
The endowed chair will be a key component
of the undergraduate business concentration
in risk and insurance to be offered by the
finance department. Faculty will develop the
program during the current academic year.
The IIANC has a long history of supporting
higher education. Currently, the organization
is completing a program of endowed
scholarships at colleges and universities
across the state.
The ECU Report
Survey exposes diversity issues
Seventy-five percent of white students,
faculty and staff members are comfortable
with the state of race relations and attitudes
toward people with disabilities, but only 61
percent of minorities on campus feel that
way, according to a survey conducted by the
administration. Overall, the survey suggests
that East Carolina faces several challenges
eliminating all vestiges of discrimination but
those issues are the same ones faced by most
universities.
Dr. Virginia Hardy, interim chief diversity
officer, said the survey provided valuable
insights for developing strategies to enhance
the climate for diversity and maximize equity
throughout the campus. “The university is
unequivocally committed to diversity,” she
said. “This survey is another tool in helping
us understand what improvements are needed
and how we should make them.”
The survey questionnaire was posted at ECU’s
web site, and all members of the university
community were urged to participate.
Surveys were completed by 3,237 individuals,
including students, faculty and staff. Those
who participated included 1,747 students,
749 people of color, 2,378 white respondents,
151 people who identified a physical
disability, and 247 individuals who identified a
psychological condition or learning disability.
Twenty-one percent of respondents said they
had personally experienced offensive, hostile
or intimidating conduct that interfered
unreasonably with their ability to work or
learn. Other key findings:
• Nine percent of respondents said they had been
subjected to sexual misconduct, such as touching
in a sexual manner. Four percent said they had
been victims of sexual assault while at ECU.
• Thirty percent of respondents reported that
they had observed discriminatory hiring.
Twenty-eight percent said they had observed
discriminatory promotion practices.
• Forty-nine percent of respondents believe
that ECU values their involvement in diversity
initiatives on campus. Thirty-four percent
said ECU ought to include diversity-related
activities as a criterion for hiring.
100 top alumnae honored
The diversity of successful ECU alumnae
was on display at the “One Hundred
Incredible ECU Women” event in October.
A good example was the panelists at the
Women’s Roundtable session, which included
Linda E. McMahon ’69, CEO and co-founder
of World Wrestling Entertainment;
Dr. Lynn L. Lawry ’92, associate director of
the Center for Disaster and Humanitarian
Assistance Medicine; and Beverly Cox ’67,
director of exhibitions and collections
management at the National Portrait Gallery.
The 100 honored alumnae are:
Alison H. Atkins, Irene F. Bailey,
Edna Earle Baker, Judy B. Baker,
Cassandra D. Bell, Lisa D. Benton,
Margaret E. Bishop, Rebecca Y. Bloxam,
Emily S. Boyce, Carolyn J. Breedlove,
Susan C. Brooks, Suzanne J. Brooks,
Judith H. Budacz, Lisa R. Callahan,
Shirley A. Carraway, E. Carol Carrere,
Madge S. Chamness, Gloria A. Chance,
Joyce G. Cherry, Maggy M. Costandy,
Beverly Cox, Michele C. Daenzer-Sapp,
Nancy W. Darden, Deborah C. Davis,
Jane M. Dillard, Patricia C. Dunn,
Linda R. Edwards, Laura L. Elliott,
Susan W. Engelkemeyer, Janet P. Ennis,
LaRue M. Evans, Beth G. Everett,
Janice H. Faulkner, Pansie Hart Flood,
Barbara B. Forester, Robin L. Good,
Beth Grant, Paula M. Hale,
Shelly S. Harkins, Lynn B. Hoggard,
Deborah A. Holloman, Deborah L. Hooper,
Phyllis N. Horns, Brenda P. Hughes,
Malene G. Irons, Renu G. Jain,
Elizabeth M. Jones, Leora “Sam” Jones,
Alice F. Keene, Barbara A. Kelly,
Mary P. Kirk, Jenni Kolczynski,
Deborah G. Lamm, Lynn L. Lawry,
Jessica R. L. Leif, Nell J. Lewis,
Jennifer S. Licko, Debra K. London,
Valeria O. Lovelace, Deitra L. Lowdermilk,
Carol M. Mabe, Catherine S. Marx,
Marian N. McLawhorn,
Linda E. McMahon, Lyda T. Mihalyi,
Wendy A. Miller, Katie O. Morgan,
Catherine T. Morsell, Maureen J. O’Boyle,
Margaret R. O’Connor, Michelle Orsi,
Wendy L. Perry, Jeanne Piland,
Jean H. Preston, Emily Procter,
Jane S. Ranum, Nina B. Repeta,
Lucy E. Roberts, Sandra M. Rowe,
Coretha M. Rushing, Brenda M. Ryals,
Mary C. Schulken, Ruth G. Shaw,
Lindsay C. Shepherd, Betty S. Speir,
Mary Rose Stocks, Shelby S. Strother,
Kathy A. Taft, M. Louise Thomas,
Rosalynn “Rosie” Thompson,
Kenya T. Tillery, Emilie M. Tilley,
Linda Lynn Tripp, Beth B. Ward,
Margaret C. Ward, Edith D. Warren,
Rhonda J. Warren, Linda L. Willis,
Annette B. Wysocki, Sandra Kay Yow.
Marc Kawanishi
Dr. Marilyn Sheerer and panelists
Furnished
Twenty-one children and teens with complex congenital heart defects rallied at Camp
Don Lee near the coast in October to attend the third Camp WholeHeart. Campers
had fun while learning ways to optimize their health and maintain an active lifestyle.
Camp volunteers included ECU students and faculty from disciplines including child life,
nutrition and pediatric cardiology as well as volunteers from University Health Systems
and the community. The camp was sponsored by the Children’s Miracle Network and Pitt
County Memorial Hospital Foundation. Priti Desai, a faculty member in the College of
Human Ecology, coordinates Camp WholeHeart.
Furnished
The series will conclude April 28 with a
special performance by Garrison Keillor of
Lake Wobegone Days, a scaled-down version
of his popular Prairie Home Companion radio
program that he stages in smaller venues.
This performance was to be limited to series
subscribers and was expected to be Keillor’s
only appearance in eastern North Carolina.
n Dance 2008, the annual dance festival
staged by the School of Theatre and Dance
will be Feb. 7–12. Flora, the Red Menace a
musical by Kander and Ebb, who wrote and
music and lyrics for Chicago and Cabaret,
will be staged Feb. 29–March 4. Liza Minnelli
won a Tony Award for her portrayal of Flora
in the original 1965 production of the play.
Opera
Deborah Nansteel and graduate students in
the Department of Vocal Studies will star in
An Evening at Orlofsky’s, their special version
of the second act of Strauss’s Die Fledermaus,
on Nov. 29. One of the world’s favorite operas,
Mozart’s The Magic Flute will be presented
March 5–7 in A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall under
the direction of John Kramar and conducted
by Jorge Richter. The performance will
feature a new translation by San Francisco’s
renowned librettist Donald Pippin.
Symphony
Works by Beethoven, von Weber and
Mikhail Glinka will be performed by the ECU
Symphony Orchestra on Nov. 18 in Wright
Auditorium and Nov. 19 at the Minnie Evans
Arts Center in Wilmington. The orchestra
returns to campus Nov. 28
for a private concert for the
Pitt County Schools.
Choral Music
The University Chorale and
St. Cecilia Singers, under
new director Jeff Ward, will
present a concert Feb. 24
that will include works by
Debussy, Britten and several
American composers. The
ECU Chamber Singers
are planning a tour in late
February to Virginia and
Washington, D.C.
Who’s in town?
Music, poetry, a dramatic
retelling of the life of
Hildegard of Bingen and a
showing of Cecil B. DeMille’s
silent film masterpiece King
of Kings will be among the
highlights of the Religious
Arts Festival Jan. 24– 27,
with most events scheduled
at St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church near the university.
Guest organist Stephen
Hamilton, minister of music
at Church of the Holy Trinity
(Episcopal) in New York City,
artistic director of the Music
at Holy Trinity series, and a
member of the faculties at
Hunter, Mannes and Queens
colleges, will perform Marcel
Dupre’s Stations of the Cross
on Jan. 24, with a reading of
the Paul Claudel poetry that
inspired the composition.
Actor Carol Anderson will
present A Feather on the
Breath of God Jan. 25 about
the life of Christian mystic
Hildegard of Bingen.
David Briggs, organist emeritus at
Gloucester Cathedral, will improvise an
accompaniment to the film King of Kings
Jan. 25, and festival guest artists will present
King of Kings, Queen of Heaven—The Many
Faces of God Celebrated in Lessons and
Carols Jan. 26.
Four Seasons, near and far
The Four Seasons Chamber Music Festival
will begin 2008 with a performance just
down the road in Washington, N.C., but will
finish far from home, in Israel.
Now in its eighth season, the festival
opens the year with a Jan. 9 performance
at the restored Turnage Theater in Little
Washington. Artistic director Ara Gregorian
then will lead the ensemble during evening
concerts at Fletcher Recital Hall on campus
on Jan. 10 and 11. Then it will hit the road
for a Jan. 12 performance at the N.C. School
of the Arts in Winston-Salem. All of those
performances will feature Schubert’s String
Trio, Schumann’s Piano Quintet and Franck’s
Piano Quartet. Performing will be pianist
Robert McDonald, violinists Ani Kavafian and
Joseph Genualdi, cellist Michael Kannen and
Gregorian on viola.
The festival returns to Carnegie Hall in New
York on Feb. 23. The chamber music sextet
Concertante will join guest pianist Adam
Neiman, violinist Ani Gregorian Resnick, and
cellist Sarah Carter. Together with Gregorian,
they’ll perform Schumann’s Adagio and
Allegro; Brahms’ String Sextet in B-flat Major
and piano music by Chopin.
The season will conclude with a May 23–28
tour of Israel, where concerts will be given
in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Rishon Le Zion and
Raanana. The May 26 concert at Henry
Crown Hall in Jerusalem will be broadcast
live on radio.
Performing Arts
n In what’s touted as the first
performance in Greenville by a touring
Broadway production, the S. Ru dolp h
Alexander Performing Arts
Series will offer Ring of Fire: The
Music of Johnny Cash on Jan. 20 in
Wright Auditorium. The musical, which
debuted on Broadway in the spring
of 2006, will feature 38 songs by the
singer. The Empire Brass Quintet,
hailed as the finest such group on the
continent, will perform on Jan. 31. The
Monterey Jazz Festival is celebrating
its 50th anniversary with a national tour
that stops on campus on Feb. 6. The
acclaimed jazz musicians in the group
will be accompanied by vocalist Nnenna
Freelon, a six-time Grammy nominee
who is married to Durham architect
Phil Freelon. The State Symphony
Orchestra of Mexico, directed by
Enrique Batiz, will perform on Feb. 13.
11
2008 Winter Arts Calendar
10
For more information, go to www.ecuarts.com.
Joan Marcus
The galleries in the Jenkins Fine Arts Center and the
sculpture yards outside daily exhibit works of unusual
merit by ECU students and faculty. You can see the talent
in each piece, but to see the hand that guided these
budding artists, you have to stand back and look at the
history of fine arts at East Carolina. It’s a history that
begins in 1909 when the college learned the benefit
of graduating schoolteachers who also could draw
well. It comes into clearer focus in 1962 when East
Carolina became the first school in the state to receive
national accreditation for its arts programs. And
this apparently natural affinity for fine arts can be
seen today in the 700 undergraduates and 50 grad
students in the School of Art and Design, making
it the biggest art school in North Carolina and one
of the biggest in the Southeast.
Over the decades, many have left Greenville to
become successful artists and influential teachers.
We talked with some to hear their stories and
to ask how East Carolina influenced them. We
met acclaimed batik artist Mary Edna Fraser ’74, the
first woman to exhibit work at the National Air and Space
Museum, and James H. Cromartie ’66, a prominent historical artist
and America’s leading hard-edge realist. We also encountered younger art
grads starting interesting careers.
They would like you to know, as they do, that East Carolina has an eye for art.
12 13
Director Gil Leebrick readies Wellington B. Gray Gallery for the 2007 Faculty Exhibitition, which runs through Thanksgiving.
An Eye for Art
14
When the Cold War was casting a pall
over American culture in 1962, East
Carolina accomplished something
unusual for its time and place. It won national
accreditation for Its arts education programs,
becoming the first in the state to be recognized by
the National Association of Schools of Art and
Design. In 1976 the school did something else
unexpected. In an era when swelling enrollments
pushed budgets toward dorms and science labs, East
Carolina found money to erect a new landmark
on campus, the spacious Jenkins Fine Arts Center,
providing a nurturing, everything-under-one-roof
home for all the fine arts programs and faculty.
That long history and demonstrated commitment
to the fine arts today has produced a school that
is much larger in enrollment and bolder in scope
than is generally known, even by people working
in other areas of the university. Time and
the contribution of many hands obviously
has helped ECU build a vigorous, rigorous
arts curriculum that others admire as flexible
and practical.
Today, the School of Art and Design (SOAD) is
one of the larger divisions on campus. It offers
four undergraduate degrees as well as BFAs in art
and design and art education. There are master’s
programs in fine arts and art education. SOAD
supports 15 separate concentrations, including 13
studio programs—animation, textiles, painting,
drawing, illustration, photography, printmaking,
sculpture, ceramics and more.
East Carolina has had “the largest program in
North Carolina for so long,” says Michael H.
Drought, who was drawn here last year as the new
SOAD director. Size matters, he adds, but quality
is more important. “We want to break away from
being considered just a regional arts program” and
aim for national attention, Drought says.
He thinks that’s possible because he sees a wealth
of talent in the SOAD faculty and students. “They
tell you they like the small classes and the great
teaching. The atmosphere seems to be that of a real
family. They are doing some great things.”
Mary Edna Fraser
in her Charleston studio
You can see more of
Fraser’s art at her web site,
www.maryedna.com.
…continued on page 14
Scott Eagle
15
Mary Edna Burkhead Fraser ’74 knows
the very moment when she became an
artist. It was during her senior year at
ECU when she climbed into the open
cockpit of an old airplane piloted by her
brother and flew over Sea Island, Ga.
She looked down at the tide lapping
sandy beaches and was stunned by
the subtle beauty of the natural world.
Hooked, she began flying regularly
over the coast, carrying a camera and
leaning over the side of the plane to
snap pictures of barrier islands, sounds
and estuaries.
She had been double majoring in
home economics, with a concentration
in clothing and textiles, and interior
design—but after that airplane ride
she focused exclusively on art. She
fell under the guidance of Professor
Sarah Edmiston and studied design,
color theory and photography. Already
interested in textiles, Fraser broadened
her artistic vision “so that I was thinking
in three dimensions.”
After graduation she enrolled at
the Arrowmont School of Crafts in
Gatlinburg, part of the University of
Tennessee. There she discovered batik,
which involves dye transfers onto silk.
After she spent two years mastering
direct dye techniques and other styles,
admiring teachers told her what every
aspiring artist longs to year. “I was told
that I could make a living doing this.”
She certainly proved her teachers
right. Her batiks, often created on huge
canvases that ripple in the air, have
attracted critical acclaim—and fetched
handsome prices—in museums and
galleries throughout the U.S. and in
several foreign countries. Working out
of studios in Charleston, S.C., Fraser
sees the world from the air and even
outer space. In 1994, she became the
first woman to be honored with a one-person
textile exhibition at the National
Air and Space Museum in Washington.
She’s the official artist of NASA ;
her 2001 national touring exhibition
depicted the solar system as large-scale
silk batiks.
She’s best known in North Carolina
for collaborating with Duke University
professor Orrin Pilkey to produce the
2003 book, A Celebration of the World’s
Barrier Islands. A review in New Yorker
magazine said the “Delicate renderings
of the islands by artist Mary Edna Fraser
look like vivid aerial-view paintings but
are actually batik prints of the coasts,
counterbalancing Pilkey’s careful study
of the ‘restless ribbons of sand.’”
She draws inspiration from the
Japanese Edo prints of the 1600s–1800s
but adds a sense of monumental scale.
“I used modern dye techniques, fast film
photos and satellite imagery, and it all
came together for a lifetime of art for
me,” Fraser says.
“Between the art I studied at ECU and
at Arrowmont, I found my passion. And
I grew as a person as well as an artist.”
Scott Eagle ’86 MFA ’92 had known
since he was a high school student
in Winston-Salem that he wanted to
study art at East Carolina. “It had a
really good reputation, and it had low
tuition,” he recalls. He enjoyed his
undergraduate work, particularly the
frequent exposure to visiting artists
from New York. So it’s not surprising
that’s exactly where he headed after
graduation.
As a 22-year-old fresh out of college,
he had work published in magazines
and the New York Times. That phase of
his life accomplished, Eagle returned
to ECU to seek a master of fine arts
degree and wound up being offered
a temporary job as director of the
Wellington Gray Gallery. “One of the
best things about this program is that
you work in many media,” Scott says. “I
had little bits of everything in my thesis
show.”
He began teaching here in 2000 and
now coordinates the painting programs
as well as serving as assistant director
of the school and director of its
graduate programs. “There is no other
comprehensive program like this in
North Carolina. We’re still good in every
area.”
If it hadn’t been for Nelson Rockefeller,
James Cromartie ’66 might never have
put his art degree from East Carolina
College to good use.
As he neared completion of a bachelor
of fine arts degree with a painting
concentration, Cromartie traveled with
some fraternity brothers to Nantucket
Island off Massachusetts and fell in
love with the place. He completed his
degree and two years later, he had his
first art show on the island.
At that first show, he struck up a
casual conversation with two viewers
who seemed especially interested in
his work. He found out later that they
…continued on page 16
By Steve Rowe
Photography by Forrest Croce
were Rockefeller, the former governor
of New York, and his wife, Happy. They
began to buy Cromartie’s art, as did
some friends of the Rockefellers who
were members of the Firestone family.
This proved to be quite beneficial for a
young artist. “My father had told me he
would let me give art a chance, and if I
failed, I could come into his real estate
business,” Cromartie says.
When the Rockefellers became
Cromartie’s patrons, he had a chance to
develop his painting in oils and acrylics.
“It gave me time to mess up,” he says.
They assisted him for about four years,
after which “they said I was on my own.
If it hadn’t been for them, I probably
would have wound up working in real
estate in Charlotte.”
Since then, Cromartie has settled in
Nantucket, where he has a gallery and
studio, and he has become recognized
as a leading practitioner of the
so-called “Hard-Edge Realism” style of
painting, not unlike Hopper and Wyeth.
He also is known for his depiction of
historic buildings. He executed the
official “portrait” of the U.S. Capitol
and the White House, and he recently
finished a portrait of the U.S. Supreme
Court. He also did the official painting of
the Smithsonian Institution “castle” on
the Mall.
ECC often brought in visiting artists-in-residence
to talk about art and finding
jobs in art. “One told us, ‘Don’t give up
your day job,’” Cromartie says.
“When I started out, I was told that
one in 30,000 was going to make it as
an artist. Today, things have changed
dramatically. People can make a living
from art now. In this country, there is so
much more interest in art, and people
are more conscious of art.”
Cromartie was interested in art as a
high school student in Charlotte, and in
the early 1960s the only place to study
art at the college level in North Carolina
was at East Carolina College. “They
had the only viable art department in
the state. We were on the third floor of
Rawl in the biggest art department in
North Carolina.”
As an East Carolina student,
Cromartie recalls that he received not
only good instruction from the art
faculty, especially Tran Gordley and
Donald Sexauer, but he also received
encouragement. “It was a great art
community. The faculty and students
hung out together. And East Carolina
was not just an art school. It was a
college that happened to have a good
art program.”
Recent grads also making it
Niki Litts ’02 went straight to graduate
school at the Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts. Returning home to Raleigh
with an MFA, she spent a year figuring
out what she really wanted to do. In
2006 she learned that the Kinston Arts
Center was searching for a director of
education and exhibits. She got the job
and a year later is assuming greater
responsibilities for programming,
maintenance of programs, curating
exhibits, installing exhibits and
marketing. “Eventually, there will be a
time when I move up and into an area
with different challenges,” she says.
Tony Breuer MFA ’03 was a successful
neurologist trained at Princeton, Oxford
and Harvard Medical School before he
arrived in Greenville to teach at the
Brody School of Medicine. He enjoyed
medicine but he had always been
attracted to art. So he enrolled in the
SOA D and earned MFA in three and a
half years. He plans to wind down his
medical practice in two or three years
and devote all of his time to art. “The
professors are working artists, so they
practice what they teach, but they
don’t want students to imitate their
art to ‘please the professor.’ I feel very
strongly about my teachers and the
school here,” he says.
Christina Miller MFA ’03 spent her
junior year studying in Italy, where she
first saw the ugly picture that can be
caused by mining the precious metals
used in jewelry making. Art history
class with Ron Graziani further raised
Miller’s awareness of the environmental
connection between metal smithing
and mining, and she mounted an
exhibition as part of her graduate
work that explored the ethics of that
connection. Now an instructor at
Millersville University in Pennsylvania,
she is now considered one of the
leaders in the “ethical metal smithing”
movement. “I develop projects that
are geared to building an awareness
of where materials come from that go
into our metal smithing. I don’t know
where I would be without having taken
[Graziani’s] course.”
A faculty with vision
Hang around the Jenkins building and you
hear students use admiring tones for faculty
members like Linda Darty, a renowned
expert on enameling who earned a lifetime
achievement award from the Enamelist Society.
ECU’s metals program is believed to be the
largest program of its kind in the nation.
SOAD students also crowd into lectures
by Robert Ebendorf, a widely recognized
goldsmith and jeweler who serves as the
Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Visiting
Professor. Ebendorf, whose work has been
featured at the Smithsonian, came to campus
seven years ago as a distinguished visiting
professor and didn’t want to leave. He
extended his commitment because of his
fondness for ECU and the arts program.
Ebendorf, who taught more than 30 years
at universities in Florida, Georgia and New
York before coming to Greenville, says many
SOAD students come to college already
possessing advanced technical skills but many
are less well versed in more traditional art
forms. And yet the crafts and applied arts
often are better avenues to careers, especially
in a state such as North Carolina, which has
a large arts and crafts industry.
But SOAD wants its students to experience
art on a global scale. Perhaps that’s why there’s
a buzz surrounding visiting professor Seok
Hwa Kim, head of the Department of Art
and Design at Dankook University in Korea,
who is teaching classes in metals here this year.
The exposure to art on a global scale is
an eye-opening experience. “Making these
kinds of connections is important and will
enhance our reputation,” Drought says.
“The mentoring that the faculty gives to the
students is good and is a very important part
of their professional overview of education.
The mentoring is not just about classes, but
it also is about life,” Ebendorf says. “The
faculty members are very passionate about
what they do.”
17
Dory Daisies Shell
by James Cromartie
You can see more
of Cromartie’s art at
his web site, www.
cromartiegallery.com.
16
Metals program faculty
Linda Darty, Mi-Sook Hur,
Robert Ebendorf and
Tim Lazure
19
“Getting the (undergraduate) art degree is
not necessarily the end of the course. They
continue to work and also get an advanced
degree, or sometimes it is the other way
around, and that’s what it is all about. Most
BA/BFA students take five years, and if they
don’t go on to get an MFA, they often don’t
have time to develop maturation, and they
can’t teach,” he says.
Art is a “very challenging field” these days,
and because of the cost of materials and
supplies, a costly field, he says, and being
able to teach while pursuing one’s art is
beneficial. Having a master’s degree helps an
artist get noticed for shows and exhibitions
while also helping advance a teaching career.
Unlike many private art schools and some
public programs, ECU does not require
prospective students to submit a portfolio
for admission, but a portfolio of work is
required to pursue advanced courses in one
of the studio concentrations.
By the time the student is a senior, a second
portfolio review takes place as the student
prepares for his or her required “senior
show,” in which the student’s work is
evaluated by at least two faculty members.
Opportunities for overseas study are also
available. ECU conducts summer arts
programs in Finland, Italy, Spain and
Estonia and the Baltics. Faculty members
have participated in traveling exhibitions
in Cologne, Germany, and other
international venues.
Drought’s experience with art students in the
past confirms that art majors generally are
driven to do well.
“Whenever you are really passionate about
something—and most artists are—you do
really well. A BFA is good for a lot more
than it used to be. While it’s not a guarantee
for success, it shows you want to be
professional at some level.”
Not content to rest on its artistic laurels,
East Carolina is pushing forward with a new
vision for art and design. Other schools are
catching up, Drought says. “A lot of other
programs have developed. Five years down
the road, we would like more people to
know about us. We have great stories to tell.
Students will find strong programs and good
faculty here.”
Junior SOAD student Sarah Searcy, who
came to ECU from the N.C. School of
the Arts, is one such story. She’s double
majoring in painting and anthropology
and hopes to study the relationship between
the two in graduate school. “I’m doing
things here I never thought I’d be doing.
I’m meeting incredible people. It’s been
such a wonderful experience,” she says.
“I’m sure there will be more ‘aha!’
moments, but it certainly has exceeded
my expectations.”
East
18
Fixing the fine arts building
It was a banner day for the fine arts when
East Carolina dedicated the Jenkins Fine
Arts Center in 1976. With more than
100,000 square feet of space, Jenkins
was big enough to house all the fine arts
programs under one roof, a big plus for
faculty and students.
Its airy galleries and well-equipped studios
nurtured artistic minds, but 30 years of paint
splatters and blowtorches have taken their
toll. Some parts of Jenkins were in poor
repair until improvements were undertaken
recently. So far, classrooms and interior
hallways have been repainted, seven painting
studios have been renovated, computer labs
have been upgraded with new furnishings and
computers, five “smart” classrooms have been
developed, and exterior lighting has been
added for night work in the kiln yard.
“We actually created more square footage
for students” with this work, says SOAD
director Drought. With its literal house
now in order, Drought is planning other
improvements, including broader recruiting
efforts. Up to now, the vast majority of
SOAD students came from in-state.
“We’ve not had a significant recruiting effort
outside North Carolina, but we will start,” he
says. “I don’t think there are many programs
out there as comprehensive as ours, but this
is a competitive world, and recruiting new
students is absolutely essential.”
He also wants to make sure adequate studio
space has been secured for both students
and their programs as one way to support
the newer, growing programs. The school
also would like to expand its art collection
on public display, including possible
exhibitions at the medical campus. It
hopes to strengthen its relationship with
Greenville’s Emerge Gallery and continue
the outreach effort toward young people
through the annual Youth Arts Festival.
Drought knows that bringing some of
these plans to reality likely will require
adding more space. “We want to lay the
groundwork for expanding our facilities,
and I think the university is very committed
to our program, as shown by our building
improvements. But right now, for instance,
more students are interested in our graduate
programs than we have space for.”
What makes ECU different?
“Most people feel a cool sense of beauty in
art but at ECU art also can fire the passions.
That fact is on vivid display when students
in the sculpture program conduct the darkly
beautiful Iron Pours. Amid fire and smoke
evocative of Vulcan’s Forge, heaps of scrap
metal die in flames and are reborn as art
objects. The annual Halloween Iron Pour is a
spooky rite of passage on campus that kicks
off the evening’s merriment.”
East Carolina boasts acclaimed faculty in
even this most brutish art form, including
Professor Carl Billingsley, who brought the
artistic iron pour back to the Baltics after the
Iron Curtain fell. Profesor Hanna Jubran,
who created the “Monument to a Century
of Flight” installment at Kitty Hawk, leaves
art behind annually in Estonia and Israel.
Both have won international competitions.
But the faculty never forgets that students
one day will have to earn a living. Leland
Wallin, a painting professor for the past 15
years, explains that one sure way to avoid
becoming a starving artist is to teach by day,
preferably on a leafy college campus, and
create at night.
Iron Pour
Architectural rendering of the proposed Jenkins Fine Arts Center, circa 1974
University Archives
School of Art and Design professor Gunnar
Swanson received an award of excellence
from the University & College Designers
Association for this student recruitment
poster. The poster is also featured in Print
magazine’s 2007 regional design annual.
21
Kelly S. King ’70 ’71 has
done pretty well for
someone who still has
the same job he landed right out
of college. He’s still working for
BB&T, except the little farm-lender
in Wilson he joined after
completing his MBA has grown to
become the 11th-largest bank in
the nation. And he doesn’t really
have the same job. He started as
a management trainee and now
he’s president and chief operating
officer, the No. 2 guy in a company
with 30,000 employees.
He still hangs outs with two of
his best friends from college. Of
course, it would be hard not to
bump into them because they also
are BB&T executives. In fact, it was
King and his two ECU buddies—
plus a UNC Chapel Hill alumnus
named John Allison and a Wake
Forest grad named Scott Reed—
who are credited with transforming
the sleepy bank they all joined right
out of college into the financial
powerhouse it is today, growing
from $250 million in assets then to
$128 billion now.
Besides King, the ECU members of
the “Fab Five,” as business writers
dubbed the team that transformed
BB&T, are W. Kendell Chalk ’68 ’71,
who now serves as senior executive
vice president and chief credit
officer; and Henry Williamson Jr.
’68 ’71, who rose to become chief
operating officer of the bank before
taking early retirement in 2004.
“For 30 years we basically ran the
company and for 20 plus ran it
as a team,” King says as he gazes
out the window of his office atop
the BB&T tower in downtown
Winston-Salem. “[Working with
them has] been kind of like being
in a small company, seeing a small
company grow up and change.”
20
Long- Term
Interest
By Steve Tuttle
King and Williamson started work at
BB&T in Wilson within 30 days of each
other. Four years later they were joined by
Chalk, another friend from ECU, who had
been teaching at a community college since
completing his MBA. Among King’s first
acquaintances on the job were Allison, who
had just gotten his MBA from UNC Chapel
Hill, and Reed, fresh out of Wake Forest
University’s MBA program.
King and his two ECU buddies, plus
their two new friends, settled into the
comfortable, routine life of small-town
bankers. But it was a life and a lifestyle that
was about to end.
Revolutionary times
By the late 1970s King could sense that the
world of banking was about to undergo a sea
change. Industry trends were pointing toward
consolidation, pushed by customer demand
for more diverse banking services. King and
the other young guns who had started their
careers together began questioning whether
BB&T would survive. Those concerns were
on King’s mind when a rare opportunity
presented itself. It was 1980, and King had
been promoted to city executive in Raleigh.
CEO Thorne Gregory dropped by King’s
office one day to ask how things were going.
“Not good,” he told the boss.
“We thought the company had to change to
survive. We felt we weren’t going anywhere,
and that it was not a good place for us
to stay.” Gregory listened carefully and
then set up a meeting with Allison, Chalk,
King, Reed and Williamson to hear their
suggestions. “We told him that if we
remained stuck in eastern North Carolina,
dependent on farming, pretty soon [BB&T]
would be out of business. So it was about
growth and diversification.
“Within 30 days he made some pretty big
changes. He promoted John Allison [to
president] and John became our leader in
implementing these changes. We began
diversifying and growing and continued on
that path from that day forward.”
“Grow up and change” doesn’t adequately
describe what the Fab Five accomplished.
Just since 1989, BB&T has acquired 60
community banks and thrifts, more than
85 insurance agencies and 34 nonbank
financial services companies. In that time
BB&T evolved from a regional bank serving
mainly eastern North Carolina to one whose
footprint stretches from Baltimore to Key
West, Fla. The bank how operates more than
1,500 financial centers in 11 states and the
District of Columbia.
And King, who turned 59 in September,
says the best may still lie ahead—for him
and the bank.
Determined to succeed
Kelly King knew exactly where he wanted to
go and how to get there when he walked off a
tobacco farm in Zebulon, 10 miles north of
Raleigh, and onto the East Carolina campus.
A tall, lanky kid with a determined look in
his eye, he had been preparing for college
since grade school. He realized then that
going to college would require him to take
two jobs. One job would be to earn enough
money to help his parents pay tuition; his
other job was earning the top grades that
would ensure he would be accepted.
“I had to borrow money and work to be
able to go to school. Most weekends I went
back home because I had a good job with a
guy who ran a hardware store. I had all sorts
of jobs to earn money when I was at East
Carolina. I even sold vacuum cleaners. So I
didn’t have a big social life.
“I enjoyed the academic side of college, the
organizations like Omicron Delta Epsilon,
the economics honor society. But the most
meaningfully one was the Phi Sigma Pi
national honor fraternity. Dr. Richard Todd
was the faculty chair of Phi Sigma Pi, and
it was just a good, wholesome experience.
He always took the students under his wing.
He and his wife would have the members of
the fraternity over to their house; they were
just like grandparents. It was a neat group of
people.”
Todd taught history at East Carolina for
27 years before retiring in 1977. He and his
wife provided financial aid to support 27
scholarships, fellowships and financial aid
programs. Todd Dining Hall on College Hill
is named for him and his wife.
King completed his BS degree in business at
the top of his class and immediately entered
the MBA program. “I knew all along I
wanted to be in business. My inclination was
I would go into marketing or sales. When I
finished my MBA and started interviewing,
I had offers with Johnson & Johnson and
Procter & Gamble and with the [federal
General Accounting Office].”
But his friend Henry Williamson suggested
a different possibility. “Henry had a
connection to BB&T. He said to me ‘why
don’t you interview with those guys.’ So I
did and got a [fourth] job offer. Henry was
offered a job there as well.
“But I was confused about which job to
take. I talked to Fernie James, who was the
placement director at ECU for many years.
I asked him what should I do. And he gave
me great advice. He said, ‘Son, you should
go to work for the company that has the
kind of people you want to work with the
most. You will like it better and be more
successful.’ I said that makes sense and on
that basis I picked BB&T.”
Kelly King on leadership
From remarks he gave recently to students at ECU’s BB&T Leadership Center
“What’s really interesting is how all of us [himself, Williamson and
Chalk] stayed together all these years. Every one of them could have, and
I’m sure probably did have, opportunities to become CEOs of companies
a long time ago. But every person was willing to subordinate personal gain
and personal fame to the team. There really was [a sense that] you’re here
to achieve for the team, for the good of the whole family. And over and
over and over again, I’ve seen times when people on that team, and others
in our company, would do the right thing for the company, would do
the right thing for the team, and it would not necessarily be in their best
interest. And the irony of that I’m certain is, if you really do genuinely, in
your heart, care about the success of others and if you really do care about
and commit to a team to be successful, the team will be more successful
and you’ll be more successful, too. But if you start out trying to manage
for your own success and your own personal career at all costs, you will
likely not do nearly as well in life as you could. And I can just about
guarantee, you won’t be as happy in life as you could be.”
22
Henry Williamson, Kendall Chalk and Kelly King at ECU’s B &T Leadership Center
“I was just looking for volunteers to help us
build a building where we could offer our GED
classes and other programs. He showed up
with a tool belt on and started working, and he
wasn’t afraid of the dirty work, either.
“After we got the main building finished, we
needed more space because so many kids were
coming. So we built an addition, and Kelly was
right up there on a ladder, hanging sheetrock.
He is a very giving person of his time and
energy. He is very encouraging, always telling us
‘you’re doing a great job.’”
—Juli Jenkins, John 3:16 Center, Warren County
23
25
It was a gamble whose risks King only
now appreciates. “As we started moving
into Winston-Salem and Greensboro and
Wilmington and Durham, and our business
grew, we knew then [the growth strategy]
was going to work. We didn’t have any
doubts. We were very confident but in
retrospect I guess we were cocky, which isn’t
a great quality, but we were never in doubt.
We should have been, but we weren’t.”
One reason the gamble on growth paid off
is King and his colleagues stuck to BB&T’s
long-standing philosophy of serving the
community. During the early 1990s when
King ran BB&T’s Raleigh operations he
seemed to be always involved with worthy
causes. He chaired the N.C. Rural Center,
the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, the
Triangle United Way and the N.C. Bankers
Association. He even volunteered with the
Raleigh Little Theater.
The theater “was the last thing I thought
I would get involved with. But they offered
some unique youth programs. It became clear
to me that one of the things about theater is
it stimulates creativity; when you are acting
you are being creative. I thought it was neat
for the young people to get that experience.
Creativity is a very scarce commodity; that’s
why I did that.”
In 1995 BB&T merged with Southern
National Bank and moved its headquarters
to Winston-Salem. King, Williamson and
Chalk continued their rise up the corporate
ladder as the bank spread into Virginia,
Georgia and several other states. Williamson
retired in 2004 as COO and King stepped
up to fill the shoes of his old college pal.
Despite the pressures of their jobs, King,
Williamson and Chalk remained loyal to
ECU and gave generously of their time.
Williamson co-chaired the $50 million
Shared Visions fund-raising campaign in
the mid 1990s. Chalk served on the Board
of Trustees for several years. King chaired
the Board of Visitors. The three were
instrumental in creating the BB&T Center
for Leadership in the College of Business.
The center was established in 1982 with
a $250,000 gift from the bank that was
followed by a $350,000 gift in 1991, a
$250,000 gift in 1998 and a $1 million gift
in 2005.
‘A country boy with a hammer’
Some executives play golf to relax. Kelly
King likes to drive nails. “We bought a place
on Lake Gaston about 20 years ago and since
then I have loved going up there on weekends
with the family and the kids and building
things. I built a boat ramp and a deck.
My friends from work see me up there and
they say, ‘You sure don’t look like a banker.’
And I tell them, ‘I’m just a country boy with
a hammer.’”
Juli Jenkins can attest to King’s carpentry
skills. She runs the John 3:16 Center, a
nonprofit dedicated to helping poor kids
from disadvantaged families in Warren
County, the area near King’s lake house.
She met King one Sunday at a church service
near the lake. “At the time I really didn’t
know who he was. I was just looking for
volunteers to help us build a building where
we could offer our GED classes and other
programs. He showed up with a tool belt on
and started working, and he wasn’t afraid of
the dirty work, either.
“After we got the main building finished,
we needed more space because so many kids
were coming. So we built an addition, and
Kelly was right up there on a ladder, hanging
sheetrock. He is a very giving person of his
time and energy. He is very encouraging,
always telling us ‘you’re doing a great job.’
“He’s given up a lot of his weekends to get
us going and you can tell it really makes him
happy to know we have this place where
children can come and be safe. He really
enjoys watching the children. That’s what
puts a smile on his face.”
Thad Woodard, president of the N.C.
Bankers Association, isn’t surprised that
King would work so hard. “I know it is his
personal mantra that, ‘if it is to be, it’s up to
me.’ As long as I have known him,” Woodard
continues, “Kelly was always the first person
to step forward and take the responsibility
when something important was at stake.”
King divorced and remarried 25 years
ago. His son, Ken, 29, works in corporate
banking for Bank of America in Charlotte.
Daughter Mary Ann, 22, is a senior at
Appalachian State University.
He plans to remain at BB&T until he retires
some years hence. “We have a lot of work
left to do to develop our market, particularly
in Florida. While we are a household name
in North and South Carolina, we are not a
household name down there. For right now
we are focused on running a disciplined
company. We want to continue being a high-quality,
stable, conservative institution so
that our shareholders don’t have to worry
when bad times come around. The job isn’t
done yet.”
In other words, he plans to keep his hammer
and tool belt handy.
East Todd always attracted a crowd
Dr. Richard Todd was one of those professors who always seemed to
have a crowd of students around him. Kelly King was one of many
who found a sheltering wing from Todd through Phi Sigma Pi, the
scholarship and service fraternity that Todd led for three decades.
“He and his wife would have the members of the fraternity over to
their house; they were just like grandparents. It was a neat group of
people,” King says.
Todd taught history and philosophy from 1950 to 1977, retired
and continued directing the fraternity for many years. Here’s another
memory of him posted at the ECU web site by Donald Turner ’78:
“One of my first memories of ECU was visiting the History
Department during orientation. Dr. Richard Todd was standing in
the halls of Brewster Building waving people into his classroom like
the gatekeeper of the Emerald City of Oz. “Come on in!!” I knew
right then that college life was going to be filled with many colorful
and exciting people and experiences. Dr. Todd added so much to the
lives he touched that HIS fraternity, Phi Sigma Pi, of which I was
honored to be a member, dedicated a flagpole in his honor in front
of old Joyner Library. Students who dine at Todd Dining Hall can
little realize what kind of a giant Dr. Todd was in the educational
process at ECU.”
The 1982 class of the Phi Sigma Pi scholarship and service
fraternity, with advisors Dr. Richard Todd and Cathy White
(standing third row, right).
24
Timely and Timeless, East Carolina.
Where Your Dollars Support Scholars!
Wright Building • Brody Building • Athletic Venues
1-877-499-TEXT • (252) 328-6731
www.studentstores.ecu.edu
Shop our Annual Holiday Sale on
Tuesday, December 4th
4 pm – 8 pm
From trendy to traditional, you’ll find officially licensed East Carolina apparel, merchandise, and high-quality
gifts at the ECU Dowdy Student Stores. Visit us online, or shop one of our stores during your
next trip to campus!
Cuckoo style clock plays
the sound of a cheering crowd
and PeeDee appears on the hour!
26
Many professors are content
to lecture at the front of a
classroom, but Roger Rulifson
thinks that Green Mill Run, the creek at the
bottom of College Hill, provides an excellent
learning environment. That’s where he takes
his biology students at the beginning of each
semester. Plunging into the creek with them,
he teaches the students how to measure
dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity, visibility and
other vital signs of the stream.
Then they move on to a larger learning
environment, the Lake Mattamuskeet
National Wildlife Refuge in nearby Hyde
County, where they spend three days
collecting water and fish samples. Having
filled their notebooks and Mason jars, the
students spend the rest of the semester in
the lab analyzing their samples, learning
how to tell the age of fish and studying food
habits. Rulifson helps his students with
their analysis and compiling their tables, but
the interpretation they present in the term
papers is their own.
“There’s no other class like it here where
they can learn techniques they have to know
in the real world of fisheries,” he says.
Rulifson’s enthusiasm shows when he talks
about his students and his teaching methods.
His face lights up, and his hands gesture
energetically. While most professors on
campus are similarly enthusiastic about their
work, few have been at it as long as he has.
Fall 2008 will mark his silver anniversary
on the ECU campus. But after nearly
25 busy years, Rulifson is as enthusiastic
about teaching and research as ever.
He is a senior scientist and professor in the
Institute for Coastal and Marine Resources
and the Department of Biology and
director of the Field Station for Coastal
Studies at Mattamuskeet. He’s won several
awards and was named 2006-07 Advisor
of the Year for his work with the student
chapter of the American Fisheries Society.
In the community, he is the lanky, dark-haired
guitarist with the contra dance band
Elderberry Jam and dances with the Green
Grass Cloggers.
Rulifson majored in biology and French
at the University of Dubuque in Iowa and
completed his master’s and doctoral work
in marine science and engineering at N.C.
State University. In the 1980s, he designed
a junior-level marine biology course that
allowed students to work in groups, much
like professional scientists. The camaraderie
helped students develop an affinity for ECU,
create individual research projects that they
conducted at the Duke Marine Lab on Pivers
Island near Beaufort, and showed Rulifson
“whether a student was a leader or follower
and whether they followed through. The
class format gave me something real to say
about them to potential employers.” Because
of increased undergraduate enrollment,
Rulifson had to transfer the collegial
atmosphere to his senior- and graduate-level
fisheries techniques courses.
Rulifson’s lab averages seven to 10 students,
and many later become professionals in local
and national fisheries research and education.
Charlton Godwin ’01 ’03 is the primary
striped bass biologist for the N.C. Division
of Marine Fisheries. Heidi Alderman ’06
teaches high school biology in New Bern.
Chad Smith ’04 ’06 coordinates the ECU-based
Citizens’ Monitoring Network, which
recruits local volunteers to measure water
reproductive
age. They
usually have six to
10 pups over a two-year
period, whereas some
fish can produce 40 million
offspring in a single season. Thus,
over-fishing can devastate dogfish
populations much more rapidly, and they
take longer to rebuild—perhaps
15 to 30 years.
The research by Rulifson and others led to the first international
symposium on spiny dogfish in Seattle, Wash., in 2005. That was
followed by an August 2007 conference at ECU where Rulifson and
14 international colleagues developed five hypotheses about dogfish.
Now, collaboration among North Carolina and Canadian
scientists could change policies enforced by the National Marine
Fisheries Service.
Like birds that annually use the Atlantic Flyway, dogfish also move in
established patterns, which scientists are starting to map. Rulifson says
the U.S.-Canada partnership is vital because, “You’ve got to have people
on both ends, just like working with migratory birds, but the difference
with fish is you can’t see them.”
Every February, Rulifson and other scientists sail off the Outer Banks
in a 180-foot research vessel where they catch, tag and release dogfish.
The tags request that those who catch the fish relay the information to
Rulifson, who has heard from fishermen in South Carolina, Georgia and
Florida. Next, Rulifson plans to implant radio transmitters in the tags
to more closely track the migratory patterns of dogfish.
Rulifson believes his research is important because dogfish are an
important food source and a bellwether of the health of other species.
“That’s why I’ve been so interested to keep working. I’ve come to
actually like the little critters. They do kind of look like a dog.”
By Leanne E. Smith
quality. Jen Cudney ’04, who was a head
technician in an aquatic ecology lab for the
Ohio Division of Wildlife, entered ECU’s
coastal resources management PhD program
this fall as Rulifson’s assistant.
Rulifson’s research for the past decade has
focused on the spiny dogfish, which is the
most common variety of shark. While not
highly regarded in America, spiny dogfish are
prized in many other cultures. “Spurdogs”
are part of the British fish-n-chips basket.
In France and Germany, pickled dogfish—
“schillerlocken”—are served with beer. The
fins are commonly used for soup in Asia.
Rulifson first became interested in dogfish in
1996 when two North Carolina commercial
fishermen approached him. With support
from North Carolina Sea Grant, Rulifson
researched the fish population and learned the
fishery had already started to crash.
He says that, compared to other fish,
dogfish live longer and are slower to reach
from the class room Books by ECU faculty
Where cargo ships from the Far
East and Europe now unload
freight containers at the N.C. Ports
Authority in Wilmington once
stood a sprawling shipyard where
25,000 workers built Liberty ships
for service during World War II.
Few people now remember the
key role that Wilmington played
in the war effort, an oversight that
has been corrected with publication
of The Wilmington Shipyard:
Welding a Fleet for Victory in World
War II by East Carolina rare book
curator Ralph Scott.
The slim volume meticulously
recounts the creation and brief
existence—from 1941 through
1946—of the North Carolina
Shipbuilding Corp. Created as an
extension of the
giant shipyards at
Newport News,
Va., the Wilmington
yard contracted with
the U.S. Maritime
Commission to produce
Liberty ships—440-foot-long
workhorses used to
transport cargo and troops.
Working 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, the yard
produced 126 Liberty ships
and 117 Victory-class vessels.
Surprisingly, only 21 of the ships
were torpedoed during the war;
most survived well into the 1960s
and ’70s as U.S. Navy and Coast
Guard ships. None survive today.
“Just as the vessels built by the
yard were an important factor
in the Allied victory, so the yard
itself became a major shaper of
Wilmington’s role as a major
Atlantic coast port,” Scott said.
The Wilmington Shipyard:
Welding a Fleet for Victory
in World War I
History Press, 158 pages, $19.99
The doctor of dogfish
27
Roger Rulifson
Steve Taylor
28 29
D e p t h C h a r t
Success in sports now depends on
some unusual team members.
By Bethany Bradsher
ECU’s football video coordinator Will Davis
30
T
Will Davis has a glamorous title—football
video coordinator—but his days are usually
consumed with the minutiae of filming every
minute of every football practice as well as
the games themselves. In the off-season, he
films the strength and conditioning drills
that every player participates in so that the
coaching staff can analyze their progress. He
works exclusively with a digital camera so
that the video can transmitted, edited and
viewed on a computer.
Nearby, Scott Wetherbee is hard at work in
an office he likes to call “the belly lint of
the athletic department.” His specialty, and
the reason he was hired four years ago, is
the sale and distribution of tickets to Pirate
sporting events, which increasingly is done
by computer.
Wetherbee is an expert at a computerized
ticketing system called Paciolan, a system
he mastered in previous jobs at Fresno State
and San Diego State. “When I first got here,
we were definitely behind in the ticket office
area,” says Wetherbee, whose title is assistant
athletics director of ticket operations. “This
system allows us to have online ticketing.
We have a massive database, between 60,000
and 70,000 names, and we’re up to 35,000
e-mail addresses we can correspond with.”
Another Pirate employee with an inordinate
number of balls in the air is J.J. McLamb,
The ECU Sports Department has one important thing in common with most businesses
in the private sector: Payroll is its biggest budget expense. The department employs
about 120 full-time staff and scores of part-timers. A few are marquee names—Holtz,
Holland—but most are administrative people who do mundane work behind the
scenes. But sports is a team effort, and at ECU, the work of people at the bottom of the
organization chart is recognized. You could say they are listed on the depth chart.
For example, when he was introduced as the new men’s basketball coach, Mack McCarthy
offered some comments that may have sounded odd to ECU sports fans. To support his
assertion that “a lot of progress has been made in this program,” McCarthy pointed to:
“Renovated offices, the recruiting database, the video scouting situation, the academic
support program. It is at the level that we need to win, both financially and personnel
wise. The people that we have to support us—the senior administrative staff, the sports
information staff, the business office, the compliance people—all the people are in place
to give us the support we need to grow as a basketball program.”
The message? When it comes to winning in basketball, dominant post players and guards
with a smooth jump shot aren’t enough anymore. Wins in basketball, football and all
other sports are also a product of skilled computer operators, state-of-the-art video
equipment, sharp-penciled accountants and many others who labor behind the scenes.
the assistant athletics director for
administrative affairs. McLamb oversees
all athletic construction projects and also
has a hand in the department’s operations,
which includes all of the logistics required
to stage a Pirate home game.
The work they do, and the contributions
by dozens of other employees of the
Department of Athletics, are largely invisible
to the fans who sit in the stands. But officials
insist that without them it would be difficult
if not impossible for East Carolina to field
competitive sports teams. The viewpoint
espoused by Athletics Director Terry
Holland is that everyone who works in
sports is a member of the team. He says the
challenge he and his senior staff embrace is
how to most efficiently coordinate the sports
staff for the maximum benefit of the players
and the fans.
Much of that coordination occurs at weekly
meetings of the senior athletics staff. Every
Wednesday morning, Holland and his key
lieutenants gather to compare notes to ensure
that departments they oversee are pursuing
their distinct tasks with the same vision. The
agenda is often concerned with near-term
issues: Is everything necessary in place to
stage a sporting event that will be attended
by thousands of people? Money and budgets
are also a regular topic.
Given the increasing complexity and cost
of running a Division I sports program and
complying with NCAA regulations, it’s not
surprising that many of ECU’s top sports
administrations are people like Director
of Athletic Business Barry Brickman, who
acquired his skills not on the playing field
but in graduate school; he holds a master’s
degree in sports administration from
Ohio University.
Ohio University was the first school to
realize the need for professionalism in sports.
Now more than 200 universities in the
country—including East Carolina—offer
some type of sport management degree
either for undergraduate or graduate
students. At ECU, sport management is
a master’s-level program designed to be
completed in two years. Forty-five students
currently are working on completing
the degree, says Stacey Altman, who
coordinates the program.
“As sport has become more
sophisticated, the business acumen
has been that much more
important,” says Altman, who
has directed the program since
it started nearly five years
ago. Holland and his
department have been
willing partners with
the sport management
program, Altman says.
Many of the master’s
sport management
students get
internships within
Pirate athletics.
These internships
allow them to
specialize in
anything from
facilities to turf
management to
academic advising.
Managing
the money
East Carolina’s
sports budget has
more than doubled
in the last 10 years
to $23.4 million,
a rise that closely
parallels the growth in
the student body and the
university’s expectation
that Pirate athletes will be
successful on the field and in
the classroom.
ECU now fields 21 varsity teams and
supports them with a web of complex
systems whose overarching goal is to win
games and create a favorable impression
of the university far beyond Greenville.
With 120 full-time employees, the sports
department is comparable in size to the ECU
How do we compare?
The $23.4 million that East Carolina will spend
on sports programs this year sounds like a lot of
money. But how does that compare with other
schools? To get that information, we e-mailed
the sports information directors at a dozen
universities, mostly those on ECU’s football
schedule and a few that aren’t.
We heard back from nine. Of those, the three
private schools said they don’t disclose that
information. Six schools responded with their
budget numbers, as grouped below.
A word of caution: There is no exact apples-to-apples
comparison with these numbers. Schools
account differently for sports income and
expenses. Example: Some sports budgets carry
travel expenses for the band and cheerleaders,
some don’t.
North Carolina sc hools
UNC Chapel Hill .  . . . . . . . . $51 million
N.C. State University .  . . . . . . $37.1 million
Appalachian State University.  .   .   .   . . $9.5 million
Conference USA sc hools
University of Memphis.  .   .   .   .   .   .   . $31 million
East Carolina University.  .   .   .   .   .   . $23.4 million
Marshall University.  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . . $19 million
University of Alabama at Birmingham. $20.9 million
Na tional averages
Average of all Division I schools*.  .   . . $29.4 million
Average of ACC schools*.  .   .   .   .   .   . $31.7 million
Average of all C-USA schools*. . . . $17.7 million
*NCAA figures for 2002
31
33
Growing the brand
None of the funding for
athletics comes from tax dollars.
So where does the money
come from? The largest single
source—$9.1 million this
year—comes from the activity
fees that all students pay as part
of their tuition. The second-largest
source of revenue is the
sale of football tickets, which
will amount to about $5 million
this year. The two other major
sources of revenue are donations
from the Pirate Club, which
reached a record $3.6 million
this year, and distributions from
the NCAA and Conference USA, at
$2.3 million.
The sharp growth in the sports budget
can be traced to a greater emphasis on the
so-called minor sports. Traditionally, the
university paid only one person to coach the
men’s and women’s tennis, golf, track and
field and swimming teams. Now, all of them
except swimming have separate coaching
staffs. At the same time, ECU is pursuing a
strategy that any CEO would find familiar;
it’s spending money to make money.
“Most of the investment from the
increased budget is to expand our revenue
operations—fund raising, marketing,
promotions and public relations,” Holland
says. The best example of that is the
business deal the university reached
with ISP Sports last year that gives
the company exclusive rights to
market ECU sports. The deal
covers radio and television
programming, signage in all
campus athletic venues and
other promotions. ECU
gets a guaranteed rights fee
plus additional financial
considerations based upon
revenue generated by ISP.
Since then, ISP has grown the
Pirate Sports Radio Network to
19 stations, courted national advertisers for
Pirate broadcasts and turned over $535,000
to ECU as its portion of the proceeds.
“The corporate partners that we’re now
cooperating with are helping us sell Pirate
athletics in every corner of North Carolina,”
said Jimmy Bass, the senior associate athletics
director for external operations who works
directly with ISP.
The ISP deal is an example of the new
philosophy of sports management, which
boils down to a simple objective: Don’t put
all of your eggs in one basket, and shoot
for balanced growth. “Literally, the growth
has taken place pretty much throughout our
entire program,” says Executive
Associate Athletics Director
Nick Floyd.
Investments paying off
Growth on the business side of
East Carolina’s sports program
has been noticeable since
Holland’s arrival here three years
ago. But observers say the larger
staffs he has hired and the greater
emphasis he placed on planning
is beginning to pay off. “We
went ahead and somewhat put
the cart before the horse in trying
to really build a foundation
under our program, before some of these
things took off,” Floyd says. “But if we hadn’t
done that, with the explosion we’ve had of
ticket sales and Pirate Club donations, we
wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”
For the first time ever, season football tickets
sold out in August this year, with more than
6,000 packages sold than in any other year.
Pirate Club membership and donations
reached an all-time high. The club set a goal
of 12,000 members and reached 12,302. It
hoped to raise $4.5 million for scholarships
and actually raised nearly $5 million. The
university experienced a record year in
revenues from logo merchandise after new
licensing deals made the caps, jerseys and
other apparels available in Dick’s Sporting
Goods, Hibbett Sports, Wal-Mart and other
department stores.
Holland says the next major area of
growth in ECU sports probably will
be in facilities. Many of ECU’s non-revenue
sports need new or improved
arenas, he says. There’s also talk
about a major fund-raising drive
to expand the football stadium
beyond its current 43,000 capacity.
But for the time being, Floyd says
ECU has about the right number
of people to chart a course into an
even more ambitious future.
East
Director of Athletic Business
Barry Brickman
College of Business, which has 129 faculty
members. Thus, the championship trophy
like the one the Lady Pirates basketball team
brought home in the spring is covered with
the symbolic fingerprints of staff who work
behind the scenes to tutor the athletes, book
airplane tickets, maintain equipment and
push through purchase orders.
In his 11 years on campus, Brickman has
seen the sports budget more than double
from $9.8 million. In something of an
understatement, Brickman observes that “it’s
more of a business now.”
As one might suppose, football represents
the largest single sports expenditure
at $6 million this year. But second is
administration at $2.5 million. Men’s
basketball is third at $1.3 million. For
accounting purposes, each sport is treated
separately, with the salaries of coaches
and assistant coaches grouped with other
staff who work just for that team. Sitting
atop those individual clusters are key
administrators who provide support for all
the teams. These 16 individuals compose the
senior staff that report directly to Holland.
On paper at least, the budget and the
organizational structure of ECU’s sports
department compares with a diversified
manufacturing or service business. But
Holland cautions against drawing a lot of
parallels between the business of sports and
the real business world. The biggest mistake
is assuming that dollars spent translate into
wins on the field. “Many of our expenses are
market driven but we must carefully avoid
the assumption that the amount of money
spent equates directly to success,” Holland
says. “If that were true, Appalachian State
could never beat Michigan and Boise State
could never beat Oklahoma.”
And while the only objective of a real
business is to earn profits, Executive Associate
Athletics Director Nick Floyd points out that
a university sports program pursues multiple
objectives and serves multiple constituencies,
all of which make managing collegiate
athletics a unique challenge.
32
“…We must carefully avoid the
assumption that the amount of
money spent equates directly
to success. If that were true,
Appalachian State could never
beat Michigan and Boise State
could never beat Oklahoma.”
—Terry Holland
34 35
Nominate an alumni scholar
Do you know a current, full-time East
Carolina undergraduate who excels in the
classroom and provides uncommon service
to the university community? If so, then
encourage them to apply for an Alumni
Association Scholarship.
Each year the Alumni Association awards
deserving students $1,000 scholarships.
We will award 20 scholarships for the
2008–2009 academic year. Applicants must
have a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.7 and
submit a completed application, a letter of
recommendation from a university official,
a community leader or an employer, and an
official transcript. Students may apply for a
scholarship each year they are enrolled as a
full-time, undergraduate student.
In the past three years, 38 scholarships have
been awarded to students earning degrees in
biology, physics, criminal justice, recreational
therapy, political science, nursing, elementary
education, community health, interior design
and much more.
One award winner
is Aadil Lodhi of
Fayetteville, a senior
who is pursuing a
double major in
physics and biology.
“It is through
efforts such as this
that encourage
students to excel
not only in the classroom, but in all aspects
of life,” he said. “The association’s efforts
will surely go a long way in helping to
pirate nation
East Carolina Alumni Association Scholarship recipients
develop ECU as an institution for greater
excellence. The real reward belongs to you
all, who have put countless time and effort
for continued success in our community.”
The scholarships are made possible through
the generous support of alumni. To learn
more or to make a donation, call the alumni
association at 800-ECU-GRAD or visit
PirateAlumni.com/scholarships for details
and a scholarship application to pass on to
an ECU student.
Plan your vacation with ECU
Mark your calendar and make plans to
spend your next vacation with fellow Pirates.
Outstanding travel opportunities have been
scheduled for alumni and friends of East
Carolina during the 2007–08 school year.
Together with Quixote Travels of Greenville,
the Alumni Association hopes you’ll take
advantage of these easy vacation choices.
We’ve done all of the planning for you. Just
sit back, relax, and enjoy vacationing with
fellow Pirates. Visit PirateAlumni.com/
piratevoyages for details.
April 6–13, 2008
Eastern Caribbean Cruise
Departing from Miami, Florida
June 13–21, 2008
New England and Canada Cruise
Departing from Norfolk, Virginia
August 3-10, 2008
Disney Land and Sea Vacation
4-night Walt Disney World stay
3-night cruise to Nassau and Castaway Cay
August 17–25, 2008
Enchanting Danube Cruise
9-day river cruise
Departing from Budapest, Hungary
September 6–13, 2008
Alaskan Adventure Cruise
Departing from Seattle, Washington
Board of Visitors leaders named
Carl W. Davis Jr. ’73
of Raleigh was elected
chairman of the ECU
Board of Visitors for
the coming year. Davis
is assistant general
manager of the UNC
Center for Public
Television. He is also a member of the
Chancellors Society and the Pirate Club. He
succeeds Doug Byrd ’69 of Fayetteville, who
had chaired the board since 2004.
Steve Jones ’91 of Raleigh, an executive
with RBC Centura Bank, was elected vice
chair and Tully M. Ryan ’91 of Edenton,
the founder of Broad Street Software Group,
was elected secretary.
New members appointed to the Board of
Visitors by the Board of Trustees include:
Olivia Collier ’02 ’04 of Fuquay-Varina,
the Appalachian Regional Commission
program manager for the N.C. Department
of Commerce; Donald Davis ’01 ’07,
the mayor of Snow Hill; Angela Nix
Moss ’97 ’98 of Raleigh, a former ECU
SGA president who works with UNC
Management Co., Benjamin A. Parrott
’93 ’98 of Greenville, a sales specialist
with Cephalon; Faye H. Bordeaux ’91
of Grimesland, who owns and directs
Greenville’s Cambridge Behavioral Health
Services; Gloria Chance ’88 of Huntersville,
the chief e-commerce officer for Wachovia
Corp. in Charlotte; D. Reid Tyler ’81 ’83 of
Raleigh, executive vice president of Keystone
Corp.; Michael Moseley ’80 of Kinston,
director of the N.C. Division of Mental
Health, Developmental Disabilities and
Substance Abuse Services; Stephen Brown
’78 of Raleigh, vice president and director
of leasing for Kane Realty; Joe Durham ’77
of Raleigh, Wake County deputy county
manager; William W. Phipps ’74 of Tabor
City, a partner in the law firm Soles, Phipps,
Ray & Prince; Joe Tart ’69 of Dunn, an
attorney; and William P. Steed ’68 of
Advance, a retired school superintendent.
Come watch the game!
Alumni will gather in homes and bars for
the final televised football game of the
year on Nov. 24. Alumni chapters held
game-watching parties this fall in Atlanta,
Central Florida, Central Virginia, Charlotte,
Frederick, MD, North Texas, Raleigh,
Tidewater, Va., Washington, D.C., and
Wilmington.
Game watches are not limited to football.
With basketball and baseball games on the
calendar, our volunteers are working to
plan more game watches at a city near you.
The East Carolina Alumni Association is
happy to assist any alumni in coordinating
game watches. We will send announcement
and reminder e-mails to alumni in the area,
post the game watch on our web site, and
we’ll even send a bounty of Pirate booty to
share with attendees. Contact the Alumni
Association at 800-ECU-GRAD or e-mail
us at alumni@piratealumni.com to get
started.
Mark Your Calendar
Be sure to save the date for these
upcoming Alumni Association
events. For details, visit
PirateAlumni.com/upcomingevents.
Raleigh Holiday Social
Tuesday, Dec. 4
Brier Creek Country Club
Away Game Basketball Tailgate
ECU vs. George Mason
Sunday, Dec. 2
Location to be announced
36 37
By October 1st, 2007 you helped us
surpass our goal of $4.5 million and
our membership goal of 11,000.
We’ve broken two records, now
let’s break some more. Let’s make
ECU the highest in members and
in funds raised. Find the fans
that haven’t joined and tell them
the importance of supporting our
Athletics Program!
“East Carolina University gave me so much both academically and
socially. I learned about giving as a student in our nursing program.
My Alumni Association membership and service is driven by my desire to
make ECU better for future Pirates!”
Join Alumni Association President Brenda Myrick ’92
as a member of the East Carolina Alumni Association.
Membership in the Alumni Association helps to provide
quality programs and services such as Pirate Career Calls
and the Pirate Alumni Network, traditional activities such as
Homecoming and reunions, alumni and faculty awards, and
student scholarships. As a member, you will join the ranks of
alumni like Brenda who demonstrate their pride, dedication,
and commitment to East Carolina University. Join today! 􀀰􃀀􀁠􆀀􀁓􅌀􀁜􅰀􀁒􅈀􀁏􄼀􀀎􀸀􀀻􃬀􀁧􆜀􀁠􆀀􀁗􅜀􀁑􅄀􀁙􅤀􀀎􀸀􀂸􋠀􀀧􂜀􀀠􂀀
􀀯􂼀􀁚􅨀􀁣􆌀􀁛􅬀􀁜􅰀􀁗􅜀􀀎􀸀􀀯􂼀􀁡􆄀􀁡􆄀􀁝􅴀􀁑􅄀􀁗􅜀􀁏􄼀􀁢􆈀􀁗􅜀􀁝􅴀􀁜􅰀􀀎􀸀􀀾􃸀􀁠􆀀􀁓􅌀􀁡􆄀􀁗􅜀􀁒􅈀􀁓􅌀􀁜􅰀􀁢􆈀
39
􀀲􃈀􀀦􂘀􀀣􂌀􀀀􀀴􃐀􀀭􂴀􀀧􂜀􀀡􂄀􀀣􂌀􀀀
􀁌􄰀􀁃􄌀􀀀􀁑􅄀􀁅􄔀􀁂􄈀
􀀮􂸀􀀧􂜀􀀰􃀀􀀟􁼀􀀲􃈀􀀣􂌀􀀀􀀬􂰀􀀟􁼀􀀲􃈀􀀧􂜀􀀭􂴀􀀬􂰀
􀀑􁄀􀀔􁐀􀀑􁄀􀀍􀴀􀀒􁈀􀀐􁀀􀀖􁘀􀀍􀴀􀀐􁀀􀀑􁄀􀀔􁐀􀀏􀼀􀀀􀁽􇴀􀀀􀁔􅐀􀁔􅐀􀁔􅐀􀀍􀴀􀁍􄴀􀁆􄘀􀁏􄼀􀀾􃸀􀁑􅄀􀁂􄈀􀁏􄼀􀀾􃸀􀁁􄄀􀁆􄘀􀁌􄰀􀀐􁀀􀀑􁄀􀀔􁐀􀀏􀼀􀀍􀴀􀁀􄀀􀁌􄰀􀁊􄨲
2007 Brandon Le
Maning and Hannah
Brooks Doughtie were married June 9 in Cancun,
Mexico. He works for Greenville’s Rivers and
Associates. Tara Masod is assistant business
manager at Thomasville Stores of New Jersey’s East
Hanover location.
2006 Diana L. Dilard is a
certified nurse practitioner
at the Roanoke Clinic, Halifax Regional Medical
Center’s family medical office. Eric Cole Feyer
and Anne Michelle Williams were married June
24. He works for Feyer Ford, Lincoln, Mercury of
Williamston. Nancy Hil, sales coordinator for
the Greenville Hilton’s banquet department, was the
April 2007 employee of the month. Michele
Le Hunckler and Kyle Mitchell
Stokes ’07 were married June 23 in Clemmons.
She works for Pitt County Schools and he works with
Dr. Elizabeth Mullett and Associates. THOMAS
MASSENGILL, a mortgage loan officer for BB&T
in Carrollton, Ga., completed BB&T’s leadership
development program. Adam Brady Murphy
and Tiffany Leigh Williams were married June 16
at New River Air Station Protestant Chapel. He is
a customer service representative for HD Supply
Waterworks. Navy Seaman Christopher M.
Nelson completed basic training at Recruit
Training Command, Great Lakes, Ill. Michael
Rowe of Hackettstown, N.J., graduated from the
Game Face Executive Academy in Portland, Ore.,
and has an inside sales position with Major League
Soccer’s New York Red Bulls. Lindsey Leigh
Taylor and Daniel Bryan Haddock were married
June 16. She teaches kindergarten in Beaufort County.
Tara Louise Thach and Dana Christopher
Stroud were married May 19. She works at PCMH
and they live in Snow Hill. Catherine Noble
Whitehurst and Joel Christian Grimm were
married June 30 in Bethel. She is a planner for Craven
County government in New Bern, where they live.
2005 Jesica Marie Cimo
and Darrell Robert Jefferson
were married May 12. She is a nurse in PCMH’s
neonatal intensive care unit. Anderson Carder
Frutiger and Meranda An Adams
’07 were married June 16. She is a dietetic intern
at ECU and he is part owner of ASAP Photo and
Camera. They live in Greenville. Jared Blake
Gray and Elizabeth Dare Nelson ’06
were married June 10 at Yankee Hall Plantation.
Living in Greenville, she works for Brantley, Jenkins,
Riddle, Hardee & Hardee and he works at HML Site
Development. Donna Lloyd ’05 ’07 is a basic
skills instructor at Sampson Community College.
Class notes
Alumni Spotlight
More than 800 Wake County kids are
acquiring the same love for dance that
Marilyn Chappell ’90 learned from a
former Rockette when she was growing
up in New York City. The small dance
studio that Chappell and her husband,
Chris Chappell ’89, opened in Holly
Springs south of Raleigh in 1998 has
grown into one of the largest in the area.
Fueling that growth have been two
principles that the Chappells firmly
believe in: Dance should be a community
art instead of a discipline limited to
studios, competitions and metropolitan
stages. And teachers should be role
models of community involvement. Now
an at-large board member of the N.C. Dance Alliance, she
was the Raleigh Jaycees’ 1996 Young Educator of the Year
and the 2000 winner of the Triangle Community Foundation’s
Artist in Community Service Award. She and her husband
shared the 2001 Holly Springs Citizen of the Year recognition
for helping with the town’s Center for the Arts.
Amy White, a senior dance education major at ECU doing
her student teaching at Raleigh’s Enloe High School, is one
of Chappell’s many success stories. About her six years at
HSS D, she says, “I learned that I should stay true to myself
and just dance without worrying about others: ‘Dance as if
no one is watching.’”
As the Holly Springs School of Dance approaches its 10th
anniversary, Chappell hopes its goal of “using our gifts and
talents to the betterment of our community” continues to
cultivate dancers in “a place where kids can be creative,
where we provide many opportunities for growth as an artist
as well as human beings.”
—Leanne E. Smith
Marty Dickens ’69 of Nashville, Tenn.,
announced his retirement as president of
AT&T Tennessee, a position he has held
since 1999. He said he plans to remain
active in civic affairs in Nashville, where he
recently was honored as Outstanding
Nashvillian of the Year by the city’s
Kiwanis Club. Dickens is chairman of the
board of trustees of Belmont College, a
large Baptist-affiliated school in Nashville. He has served on
the local boards for the YMCA, Boy Scouts, Vanderbilt’s Blair
School of Music, Adventure Science Center and the
Fellowship of Christian Athletes as well as the corporate
boards of Genesco and First American Financial Holdings. He
is a past chairman of the Nashville Convention and Visitors
Bureau and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. He
currently heads the Music City Center Coalition, a business
group advocating for a new downtown convention center.
41
Robin Rene Reason and Ralph Wayne Lilley
Jr. were married July 21 in Jamesville, where they
live. She teaches business at Bear Grass High School.
Sarah Meagan Strickland and Brandt
Allen Baker were married May 19 at Yankee Hall
Plantation. She works at AutoMax of Greenville.
2004 Dr. Jenifer
Locklear is a family
medicine physician at Harris Family Medicine,
which is part of Scotland Health Care System in
Laurinburg. Mary Elizabeth Norton of
Laurinburg and John Wesley Quick I ’05
of Greensboro were married June 30 in Laurel Hill.
She teaches at Wagram Primary School, and he is a
CPA with KPMG LLP. Jesica Lyn Shaw and
Christopher Mart in Decker ’05 were
married Aug. 4 in Kinston. She is a nurse at PCMH
and he is a computer technician for Lenoir County
Schools. LEANNE E. SMITH ’04 ’06 is the author
of East Carolina University: Off the Record (2007), which
offers “insider info” about aspects of the student
experience at ECU. The guidebook is geared to
high school juniors and seniors who are considering
attending ECU, but is also appropriate for ECU
students who are new to college life. Kurt Wayne
Weaver and Angela Jean Gfeller were married July
7 in Mount Pleasant Chapel at Tanglewood Park in
Clemmons. They live in Winston-Salem. He is a senior
graphic designer for PinPoint Creative Group.
2003 James Rusel Or ’03
’04 and Jennifer Lynne White
were married Aug. 3. They live in Winterville and he
works in decision sciences at ECU. Paul “Corey”
Schmidt and Jeana Haris ’03 ’05 of
Cary were married March 13, 2004. He lettered in
football at ECU and is a construction manager for
ExperienceOne Homes. As a pricing analyst at SAS
Institute, she works in pricing and policy support for
the U.S. government business unit. Leigh An
Vincent and Bryan Emerson Bell were married
July 7. She is a nurse with Greenville’s Physicians East.
2002 Kevin Brighton is
co-owner of Chefs 505
in Greenville and of Chefs 105, which opened
in Morehead City in April. Trac y Cole-
Wiliams, former principal of Greenville’s Eastern
Elementary School, is the new principal at Winerville’s
A.G. Cox Middle School. Kiley Nicole
Crawford and James Matthew Pigg were
married Aug. 18 in Bethel. She is a senior financial
analyst in hardware accounting at IBM in Research
Triangle Park. Christopher Frederick
and Jenifer Stro ud ’03 of Annandale, Va.,
were married April 21 in New Bern. He works for
SAIC in McLean, Va., and she works for Novak
Biddle Venture in Bethesda, Md. Ryan Scott
Haris and Jenifer Leigh York ’06 were
married July 7. She is a visual merchandiser for Belk,
and he is a marketing representative for Federated
Insurance. Dr. Earl More is the new principal
at C.B. Aycock High School in Wayne County. He
taught business and marketing there for 23 years
before becoming assistant principal at Meadow Lane
Elementary School and principal at Brogden Middle
School. Kely Elizabeth Nottingham
’02 ’06 and Matthew Thomas Davis were married
June 30 at Yankee Hall Plantation. She is a media
coordinator at Greenville’s Wellcome Middle School.
He is a sales representative for Hardware Suppliers of
America. Mike Powell, who was a commercial
lines account executive for Ward Insurance in Eugene,
Ore., is now a commercial lines agent with the
Greenville branch of Southern Insurance Agency.
HOLLY SCOTT and MIKE HARRINGTON
’03 ’04 were married Dec. 2, 2006, in Manteo. A
Greenville native and former ECU baseball player, he
is the new corporate general manager at Resort Realty
of the Outer Banks. At 25, he is the youngest real
estate general manager on the Outer Banks. A Kinston
native, she is the new wedding director/facility
manager at Mallards Marsh in Wanchese. John
Brooks Southworth and Meredith
Leigh Deans ’06 were married June 16 in
Washington. He is an instructional technology
consultant at ECU, and she teaches English at South
Central High School. Katie Tinkler, who has
experience in technology sales, joined the Cary real
estate division of Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and
Walston. Sydnor Cozart Wiliams and
William McDaniel Greene were married June 23 in
Beaufort and they live in Raleigh.
2001 Ane Monroe Dervin
’01 ’04 of Winston-Salem
received her doctorate of music in clarinet
performance at Michigan State University. A former
N.C. Symphony member, she has a special insterest
in Holocaust-inspired music and music written in the
concentration camps. DR. Scott Hovis practices
with Gastonia Surgical Associates at Gaston Memorial
Hospital. j.C. Moeler is commercial relationship
manager of Capital Bank’s Raleigh commercial
team. MICHAEL F. SANTOS is co-owner of
Chefs 505 in Greenville and of Chefs 105, which
opened in Morehead City in April 2007. Keisha
Sheperson Stewart of Garner is a biologist
for Talecris Biotherapeutics and has two sons. As a
softball player at ECU, she started in every game,
and set school records for hits (316), runs (263) and
doubles (75), and is second in home runs (26), bases
on balls (124) and stolen bases (162).
2000 Wil Aycock is a tax
manager for RSM McGladrey’s
Rocky Mount office. He has seven years of public and
private sector accounting with individuals, corporations
and non-profits. Chesley “Chess” Gray
Black IV is director of campus services at Johnson
& Wales University in Charlotte, where he was director
of ITS after becoming assistant director for technology
at UNC Charlotte. A former head drum major for the
Marching Pirates, he is a conductor and adjudicator
for several music programs and competitions. Kris
Lundberg , a New York City-based actress, played
Bianca in, and was fight director for, Shakespeare’s
The Taming of the Shrew at the Carolinian Shakespeare
Festival in New Bern. Nick Schnabel , who
lettered twice as a second baseman at ECU, is
an assistant baseball coach at Liberty University.
He played for farm teams in the Montreal Expos
organization and for the Harrisburg Senators. Frank
Wigins left his job as principal at Farmville’s Sam
D. Bundy Elementary School to return to Henderson.
1999 Mary Elizabeth Hughes
and Randall Gilbert Manning
were married Aug. 4 in Winterville. She works for
Schering Plough Pharmaceuticals. Rebeca M.
Thompson was promoted to senior account
manager/group operations manager at The Planning
Group in Wilson after five years with the 36-year-old
financial planning company. BRENT and AMANDA
HANKS ANDERSON ’00 had a daughter, Kyleigh
Grace, who joined 3-year old brother Chase William,
on July 18.
1998 Brian Fields ’98 ’01 is a
business banker at First Citizens
Bank in Greenville. He is a former baseball pitcher for
Greenville’s J.H. Rose High School and ECU, and a
member of the University City Kiwanis Club. Angela
Michele Maning and Dr. Brian Christopher
Vinson were married May 12 at Historic Red Banks
Primitive Baptist Church in Greenville. She works for
Shealy Electrical Wholesalers. Leslie Loraine
Meserli Maybery ’98 ’99 was promoted
to chief financial officer at Eastern Radiologists in
Greenville, where she was a controller. She is also a
CPA with nine years of experience in finance. Lacey
Rolins, originally of New Bern, is a vice president
and a team leader in Winston-Salem at BB&T, where she
has worked since 1999. Ed Watkins is the jack man
for NASCAR driver Elliott Sadler and a parts manager
for Gillette Evernham Motorsports. On ECU’s football
team, he was a defensive lineman, guard and center from
1994 to 1996.
1997 Michael Clark of
Laurinburg is an assistant vice-president
and loan officer at First Capital Bank. He
previously worked for RBC Centura and is active
in the Laurinburg Optimist Club. Ryan Edric
Featherer and Sarah Elizabeth Miles of
Norfolk, Va., were married July 7. He is the orchestra
director and fine arts department chair at Maury
High School, where he was the 2007 teacher of the
year, and where she is a social studies teacher. Chris
Ivey was promoted from fitness supervisor to
manager of Bladen Fitness Services in Elizabethtown.
Chris Lenker ’97 ’00 and Laura Sharp
Lenker ’99 ’02 had their first child, Addison Cade,
on May 23. Adam McComb ’97 ’00 is the new
director of parks and recreation in Surry County. A
Yadkin County native, he was the recreation program
supervisor for the Elkin Recreation and Parks
Department for five years. For the N.C. Recreation
and Parks Association, he is on the athletics director
workshop steering committee and is the athletics
division chair. He and his wife, Ruthan
McComb ’96, have two sons, Thomas and Luke.
Barbara An White and Derrick Stancill
Page were married April 21 in Hertford. They live in
Winterville, and she is a laboratory specialist for the
N.C. State Laboratory of Public Health.
1996 Jenifer Bal is a
community awareness coordinator
for the Martin/Pitt Partnership for Children, the
Smart Start agency for Martin and Pitt counties.
Sonia Foster, a nursing professor at Catawba
Valley Community College since 2003, received the
Robert Scott Award from the N.C. Associate Degree
Nursing Organization. She previously was with
Catawba Valley Medical Center’s Birthing Center and
directed the independent nurse-midwifery practice at
Catawba Women’s Center. Nicole Smith ’96 ’98
’04, former assistant principal at Falkland Elementary
School, is the new principal at Greenville’s Eastern
Elementary School. She was the Pitt County 2006
assistant principal of the year.
1995 Karen Elizabeth Floyd
’95 ’99 and Enis Le
Pearce I ’97 were married June 16. At ECU,
she works in advising and is pursuing a doctorate in
educational leadership. He works for Nash-Rocky
Mount Schools. Tod Reves Fowler of
Concord, N.H., and Raleigh, and Sarah Kathryn
Johnson of Winston-Salem were married June 2 at
The Brookstown Inn in Winston-Salem. He works for
TAC in North Andover, Mass., and they will live in
Concord, N.H.
41
Alumni Spotlight
Barnie Gyant ’89 was
appointed supervisor of
the Siuslaw National Forest
in Corvallis, Ore. The forest
covers 630,000 acres,
stretching 135 miles along
the Oregon coastline and
27 miles inland. Gyant was
deputy forest supervisor
for the White Mountain
National Forest in New
Hampshire. He’s considered
an expert in threatened
and endangered species,
forest thinning and community collaboration.
A native of High Point who played football at ECU
for three years, Gyant, 41, worked for two years after
graduating as a strength and conditioning coach for
the team. He began his Forest Service career in 1991
at the Nantahala National Forest near Asheville and
held subsequent posts at Croatan National Forest in
New Bern and Francis Marion Sumter National Forests
in South Carolina. In 1999, he became the deputy
district ranger of the Appalachicola National Forest
in Florida. Following that, he had assignments on the
Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests in Georgia and
the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests
in Virginia.
“I’m coming to a forest with a great reputation for
restoration and strong collaboration with communities,”
Gyant said. I’ve gained experience through my
background in fisheries, love of fishing and work with the
red-cockaded woodpecker. All of this will help me serve
local communities and Siuslaw employees.”
Sue Price Wilson ’75, the
veteran Associated Press
journalist who runs the
AP’s North Carolina bureau,
has had South Carolina
added to her beat and now
is responsible for both
Carolinas. Wilson, based in
Raleigh, has managed AP
operations in North
Carolina since 1999. A
native of Goldsboro, she
joined the AP in 1976 in
Raleigh as state broadcast
editor. She became the bureau’s news editor in 1996 and
was promoted to bureau chief in 1999. She worked at the
Goldsboro News-Argus during her high school years and
at the Daily Reflector while attending ECU. She gets
around Raleigh on a red scooter and keeps in constant
touch with a Treo personal digital assistant. She takes
her scooter with her when vacationing at Beaufort.
“Going over the bridges was a bit nerve wracking the
first time,” she said.
clas notes
40
This collaboration of alumni Ralph Finch ’67
and Mike Litwin ’01 follows PeeDee through
his first day as an ECU Pirate. All net
proceeds benefit East Carolina. The book is
available at www.adventuresofpeedee.com.
42 43
1994 Eilen Barbour was
promoted to assistant director
of fitness services at Southeastern Lifestyle Center for
Fitness and Rehabilitation in Lumberton. Anete
Eubanks ’94 ’96 is the new regional long-term
care ombudsman for the Mid-East Commission Area
Agency on Aging, which serves Beaufort, Bertie,
Hertford, Martin and Pitt counties. Jim Hering
of Hartsville, S.C., is a senior vice president and credit
card products marketing/sales manager for Bank of
America. He is married to Beverly Hering
’91 ’93, a stay-at-home mother, and they have
two children, Christian and Emily. Stephanie
Suzane Raecher McDonald ’94 ’97 of
Chester, Va., who teaches fifth grade in Chesterfield
County, was named 2007-08 Teacher of the Year for
Ettrick Elementary School in Ettrick, Va. BRYAN
J. RAITHEL ’94 ’96 of Cornelius is a hedge fund
manager for a private equity firm in Charlotte after
10 years working with The Vanguard Group, and he
married Collette McCune on June 9, 2006.
1993 David Adams is the
Raleigh city executive and
leader of Capital Bank’s Raleigh commercial team.
Jacqueline Boyd Elis is the new principal
of Chapel Hill High School. She previously worked
in Pitt, Guilford and Wake county schools, and was
an administrator at Durham’s Riverside High School
and Chapel Hill’s Culbreth Middle School, where
she was the 2005-06 Chapel Hill-Carrboro Principal
of the Year. CHRIS GABRIEL of Charlotte was
commissioned to create four bronze sculptures for
the African Plains exhibit expansion at the N.C. Zoo
in Asheboro. Dr. Virginia Hardy is the new
senior associate dean for academic affairs at BSOM.
She is also ECU’s interim chief diversity officer and
was associate dean for counseling and diversity and
director of BSOM’s academic support and enrichment
center. MICHELLE LEE POPE SHILLING
returned from her leave of absence taking care of
2-year-old Connor and 1-year-old Cassandra to teach
second grade in Bradenton, Fla.
1992 Ghanim Al-Shibli is Iraq’s
ambassador to Australia. As a
diplomat in the 1980s, he developed ties with the
U.S. When he and his wife wanted to stay in the
U.S. for their children’s education, the government
relocated them to Greenville in 1988 for protection.
He attended graduate school and worked at East
Carolina Vocational Center. In 2003, the U.S.
government recruited him to help rebuild the Iraqi
pool of diplomats. His projects in Australia, where
there are about 80,000 Iraqis, include recuiting Iraqi
scholarship students to attend school in Australia and
building trade relations. Greg Gentry is the new
athletics director for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County
Schools. He was head football coach at Hillsborough-
Orange County Schools for seven years. At Mount
Tabor High School, he was a health and life skills
teacher and a coach since 1998. Rene Cundif
Nauful, the new coordinator for the evening
MOPS groups, recently moved to Forest, Va., built a
new house and gave birth to Dale Austin in November
2006. After having three children in five years, she
returned to counseling trauma-suffering children part-time.
Lynete Patricia Schehr and Mark
W. Fenton were married Aug. 18. They live in Raleigh.
Judith Wilson retired from Pitt County Schools
after 22 years of teaching.
1991 Major Baret Jenkins I,
former assistant principal at North
Pitt High School, is the new principal at Farmville’s
Sam D. Bundy Elementary School. He is on the board
for N.C. Baptist Men, is a Boy Scout merit badge
counselor and has adopted five children.
1990 Jenifer Bogen and
her husband, Tim, manage a
media transfer and video production company called
INMOTION that converts slides, VHS and other
formats to DVD. They used to oper